Chelsea v Liverpool: Premier League – as it happened!
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http://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2015/may/10/chelsea-v-liverpool-premier-league-live Version 0 of 1. 5.52pm BST17:52 Full-time: Chelsea 1-1 Liverpool That’s your lot, folks. Thanks for all your emails and tweets and movie chat. It’s been real. Real fun. Enjoy the rest of your weekend too. Bye! Updated at 6.22pm BST 5.50pm BST17:50 90 + 3 mins Champiole chant the fans. They know this game is over. More frustrating play from Liverpool. Sterling breaks down the left and puts the ball to the back post. There it finds Can but instead of squaring it back for the advancing Liverpool players, he shoots, hitting the side netting. Updated at 5.52pm BST 5.49pm BST17:49 90 + 2 mins Liverpool need to score and they need to score fast. So naturally, Mignolet runs across to the other side to take his goalkick and then takes it short. That must be frustrating for Liverpool fans. 5.48pm BST17:48 90 mins There will be four more minutes of added time. 5.48pm BST17:48 88 mins There really isn’t much happening here ... no wait there is. Liverpool attack. Coutinho has the ball at his feet, just outside the Chelsea box. He shoots and the ball takes a wicked deflection. Will Courtois, who is going the wrong way, recover in time? Yes. But just about. And there is more. Henderson hits a half-volley but it’s off target. 5.44pm BST17:44 86 mins Chelsea get a throw wide on the right. Cuadrado, Fàbregas and Ivanovic all combine but they can do nothing with it. Game is lacking a bit of fizz now. 5.41pm BST17:41 84 mins Rémy goes, Cuadrado comes. 5.41pm BST17:41 82 mins On the other side of the pitch, Filipe Luís tries to dance his way around Ibe but the Liverpool reads his moves and picks his pocket. Luís responds by hacking him to the turf. A yellow card is his. Henderson wastes the free-kick by banging it over the head of everyone and out for a goalkick. 5.39pm BST17:39 80 mins Sterling wide on the left, beats Ivanovic and pings the ball across the Chelsea box. Lucky for Chelsea then that Cahill gets his foot on it and cuts it out. Coutinho takes the resulting corner but it comes to nothing. 5.37pm BST17:37 78 mins Speaking of the Liverpool captain, he is being replaced by Lucas and he actually gets a very warm send-off from the Chelsea crowd. How odd. It is also odd that Rodgers has taken him off when they need a goal, no? It’s not like Lucas is going to be doing that for you, is it? 5.35pm BST17:35 76 mins Some good work from Fàbregas wins Chelsea a corner. They’ll have to wait for that as Skrtel is down and injured. While we wait, the camera pans to some fans in the crowd who are holding placards mocking the Liverpool captain and that unfortunate slip of his. The corner is eventually taken and eventually booted clear. Updated at 5.48pm BST 5.32pm BST17:32 74 mins Ibe looks lively already. He links well with Coutinho via a one-two that makes Mikel look very silly indeed. The promising move comes to an end when he runs into too many Chelsea defenders outside their box. Down the other end, Fàbregas has the ball at the edge of the Liverpool box. He cuts inside and shoots but his effort is as miserable as a kid who did not get Scalextric for Christmas. 5.29pm BST17:29 72 mins Very much so: @ianmccourt Top Gun or Jean de Florette? Top Gun or Jean de Florette? It's just so hard to decide! 5.28pm BST17:28 71 mins Off goes (the underwhelming) Lallana and on comes Ibe. 5.28pm BST17:28 70 mins Chelsea attack though the centre. Hazard has the ball at his feet and, just outside the box, he looks to thread one through for Rémy but the Liverpool defence snuff it out. Seconds later, Fàbregas tries to do the same thing. The same Liverpool defence get in the way. Updated at 6.22pm BST 5.25pm BST17:25 68 mins Off goes Lambert and on comes Sinclair for his Premier League debut. 5.24pm BST17:24 66 mins “Gone over half way through the match and no mention of “Flight of the Navigator”. What sort of film goers are following your MBM report?” wonders Peter Doran. 5.23pm BST17:23 64 mins Off the pitch, Costa is still in the crowd with the fans. What a dude he is. On the pitch, it’s a free to Liverpool inside the Chelsea half of the centre circle. Gerrard takes it short and the ball goes two steps back before going forward. It comes to Sterling and he decides to try his luck with a run at goal. The Chelsea defenders back off and so he shoots. It’s tame and lame and Courtois scoops it up with ease. Updated at 6.21pm BST 5.20pm BST17:20 62 mins “Tarkovsy’s in-no-way-depressing The Sacrifice,” nominates Philip Podolsky. “The great master’s final offering, features a middle-aged intellectual bargaining with God in a desperate bid to stave off an impending nuclear holocaust. Now if that’s not your bag I quite frankly etc.” 5.19pm BST17:19 60 mins Rather surprisingly, it is Loftus-Cheek, and not Mikel, who is taken off for Matic. Shame that as Loftus-Cheek has hardly put a foot wrong today, whereas Mikel looks off the pace. Ho hum. Meanwhile, at the back post and in space, Skrtel has wellied one over the stadium and into Craven Cottage. Ruben Loftus-Cheek completed 100% of the 27 passes he attempted vs. Liverpool. Impressive full debut by the big man. pic.twitter.com/9Qcxfprj2C Updated at 5.29pm BST 5.17pm BST17:17 58 mins Sterling looks to skip past Mikel but Mikel is having none of it. He bundles the Liverpool man to the turf and becomes the latest victim of the yellow card epidemic sweeping Stamford Bridge. The resulting free-kick is in a decent spot, deep in the Chelsea half, but Liverpool waste it. Updated at 6.21pm BST 5.14pm BST17:14 56 mins More attacking from Chelsea this time through Hazard. With his head down and his feet stumbling, he can’t put Liverpool under pressure but he knows a man who can and he finds Willian with as simple, short pass. Wide on the right, Willian fires a sharp shot across goal that just goes wide of the post. Willian does something similar a few moments later and wins Chelsea a corner. Can they do anything with this? Eh, no. Updated at 6.21pm BST 5.11pm BST17:11 54 mins Chelsea attack down the right, Liverpool’s right, Liverpool’s weak spot. Except this time Can holds firm and despite the pressure, fires the ball clear. It goes to Sterling and he looks to get his run on but Rémy takes him down from behind. He should get a yellow but he does not. Updated at 6.20pm BST 5.09pm BST17:09 52 mins How come none of you have made a case for Top Gun? 5.08pm BST17:08 50 mins Matic is running up and down the sideline and stretching where he needs to stretch. He’ll surely replace Mikel who has failed to track a number of Liverpool runs this half. 5.07pm BST17:07 48 mins And here they go. Henderson turns and runs at goal. He plays a neat one-two with Gerrard and then plays the ball to Lallana. Lallana has his back to goal and should pass to Henderson (who has continued his run) but instead, the former Southampton man turns and shoots across the goal and watches his shot go wide. And now here is another chance for Liverpool. Sterling dances his way forward and rags the ball back for Coutinho. From a few yards out the Brazilian brushes the ball wide. That was a big chance. Updated at 6.20pm BST 5.03pm BST17:03 46 mins Liverpool get the second half going by playing a bit of keep ball. They are going to have to go for it this half, aren’t they? 5.02pm BST17:02 45 mins Here we go again. No subs to tell you about just yet. 5.01pm BST17:01 @ianmccourt No takers for The Golden Child? Shocking. 4.59pm BST16:59 More from Matt Dony. “Labyrinth wasn’t just the best film released in 1986, it was the best film of the 80’s. Then there’s the original Transformers movie, Little Shop of Horrors and Stand By Me. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a solid top-twenty entry, nothing more. Sorry if I’m focusing more on classic cinema that the game.” Don’t worry, you are not the only one. I’ve had about 3 emails re the game and many, many more re movies from 1986. It’s almost like this game does not really matter to all of you, eh? 4.56pm BST16:56 Mark Jelbert has this to say re the great 1986 debate. “Platoon? The Fly? Stand By Me? Three Amigos? Howard the Duck? Blue Velvet? Critters? Cobra? The Colour of Money? Er, 9 1/2 Weeks? Never mind which is best; is 1986 the king of film release years? And please don’t give me any nonsense about Howard the Duck - it was basically my favourite film from the ages of about 6-10. That and Dolph Lundgren’s He-Man.” 4.47pm BST16:47 Half-time: Chelsea 1-1 Liverpool Well, that was fun? Anyone up for another 45 minutes? Of course you are. Back in a few minutes folks. Updated at 4.54pm BST 4.46pm BST16:46 Big games, Big Stevie G. It all came from a Liverpool attack following that last corner. Down near Chelsea’s own corner flag on the left, Ivanovic took down Lallana with a silly, needless foul. He got a yellow and Liverpool got a free-kick. That was sent to the back post by Henderson and up rose Gerrard to nod his side back into the game. 4.44pm BST16:44 GOAL!!! Chelsea 1-1 Liverpool (Gerard, 44 mins) Who else? Updated at 5.12pm BST 4.44pm BST16:44 42 mins A rakish ball makes its way diagonally across the pitch to the right and into the foot of Fàbregas. He takes it down and, in the box, ghosts past Can, as if he were no more than a puff of cloud. Fàbregas pings the ball back and it bounces its way around before going out for a corner that comes to nothing. 4.41pm BST16:41 40 mins “There is no question as to the best fillum of 1986, and that was Betty Blue,” reckons Justin Kavanagh. “It had all the requirements of a great French film and more. It opens with a smokingly hot sex scene, it has a lot of smoking, a lot of existentialist angst that features people staring out at the rain, a great soundtrack, and in the end, you know it’s not going to end well. Oh mon dieu!” 4.40pm BST16:40 38 mins An isolated Can fouls an isolated Hazard just beside the corner flag on the left. Up goes Terry. Across goes Fàbregas. Mignolet comes and just about clears the danger. Question for you all. How many players – and what positions – do Liverpool need to buy this summer? Four? Five? 4.37pm BST16:37 36 mins “Devin Faraci of Birth / Movies / Death holds that Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a singularly evil film because of the way it celebrates privilege, rampant capitalism and the suppression of the working class,” says Christopher Fagg, getting all highbrow on us. “I’m hard pressed to disagree with him.” 4.35pm BST16:35 34 mins Zouma is down and looks to be in some trouble. The players do that substitution sign. While we are waiting for him to leave the pitch, the camera pans to Costa who is in the stand with the fans and his twin brother. You didn’t know he had a twin did you? Zouma goes and is replaced by Cahill. Updated at 5.03pm BST 4.33pm BST16:33 32 mins Corner to Chelsea. Fàbregas takes. Mignolet could catch it but instead he decides to punch it out for another corner to Chelsea. This one is rifled across the box and Terry knocks it on. Rémy has a chance to knock it home and double his side’s lead but he wasn’t ready for it. Updated at 6.18pm BST 4.30pm BST16:30 30 mins Now Lambert goes in the naughty, naughty book. He was chasing down a ball from Coutinho but Courtois got there first. The striker lashed out in frustration. Hence the caution. No end-of-season feel to this one. Updated at 4.43pm BST 4.28pm BST16:28 28 mins “An honourable mention to Short Circuit and Space Camp” offers Matt Dony. “Both chilling warnings about the inherent dangers in space-age technology.” 4.27pm BST16:27 26 mins Speaking of Skrtel. He has just gone into the yellow book for a nasty one on Rémy. The problem here is that Can is not a right back and keeps getting caught out of position, leaving plenty of space for Liverpool to attack and meaning his centre-backs have to come over and cover him. The free-kick is near the corner flag on the left but Mignolet clears it with a hefty thump of his fist. Updated at 4.51pm BST 4.25pm BST16:25 24 mins Hazard takes a long ball down and back-heels it to Willian. He plays it back to the Belgian. Skrtel says enough of that and steps in with a thunderous challenge. The ball goes out for a throw. Chelsea do nothing with that. 4.22pm BST16:22 22 mins “Have I run mad, or am I simply the only person that saw Highlander?” asks Rob Hobson. “A Frenchman playing a Scotsman. A Scotsman playing a Spaniard, or possibly an Egyptian. A Queen soundtrack. What more do you people want?” 4.21pm BST16:21 20 mins Lallana takes down Ivanovic from behind. He gets a deserved yellow card. The resulting free-kick, wide on the right deep in the Liverpool half, is taken by Fàbregas and claimed by Mignolet. If only he was always so commanding in his box. Updated at 4.32pm BST 4.19pm BST16:19 18 mins Coutinho canters forward and picks out Can, wide on the right. He, in turn, finds Sterling. The winger tries to wing his way down the wing but he is taken to the turf through a challenge from Fàbregas. He wants a free-kick and the lads in the commentary box want a yellow card for the Chelsea man, but they all end up with nothing. Fàbregas did grab his shorts and so did foul him but a yellow might have been a bit much. Updated at 6.16pm BST 4.16pm BST16:16 16 mins Gerrard has a free-kick about 45 yards out, inside the Chelsea half and just to the right of the centre circle. It is too far for a shot – even for him – and so he chips it in. Zouma heads it clear. 4.14pm BST16:14 14 mins Fàbregas is in his own half when he sees the run of Rémy. The Spain international lofts it long and the forward spins around and runs into space. Rémy takes the ball down in the box with a delicate touch but Mignolet comes to the rescue. Meanwhile, Johnson has just had a decent, marauding run down the left. Is this a sign that Liverpool might be finally waking up? Maybe. Updated at 6.16pm BST 4.12pm BST16:12 12 mins Nick Wilson is on my side. “Alien? That’s a ridiculous statement. Alien was decent watch a couple of times but I must have watched Bueller at least 200 times and it never gets old, trust me. Bueller, Bueller, Bueller ... classic. And what a soundtrack, even has a Smiths song!” 4.11pm BST16:11 10 mins Liverpool are struggling to get their foot on the ball. Chelsea are just pass, pass, passing their way around the pitch. Hazard attacks down the left. He centres to Fàbregas. In the box and surrounded by Liverpool players, he decides to shoot. Unsurprisingly, said shot is blocked and Liverpool whack it to a town called Somewhere. 4.08pm BST16:08 8 mins With 39 goals, Terry has now scored more Premier League goals than any other defender. Good for him. Back to the film debate we go with these words from Ryan Dunne. “I could highfalutingly say Hannah and Her Sisters but, come on, we all know it’s Labyrinth.” TOP SCORING DEFENDERS IN #BPL HISTORY: 39 - Terry 38 - Unsworth 28 - Harte 26 - Baines 25 - Gallas pic.twitter.com/m1t8f5wei7 Updated at 6.15pm BST 4.07pm BST16:07 Fàbregas just swung over a corner and Terry, who lost Lambert, rose above the rest and nodded it home from the centre of the box. Honestly, that was it. No more to it. Boring, eh? Updated at 4.09pm BST 4.05pm BST16:05 GOAL!!! Chelsea 1-0 Liverpool (Terry, 5 mins) Well that did not take long. Updated at 4.19pm BST 4.04pm BST16:04 4 mins Sterling is OK and back on the pitch. Chelsea pass it around and look to make their way up the right-hand side but Liverpool stop them in their tracks. Then there is more stopping in tracks. This time from Loftus-Cheek. He gets the ball ahead of Coutinho but his follow-through takes out the Brazilian. A free-kick it is. Updated at 4.16pm BST 4.02pm BST16:02 2 mins This is not the start that Liverpool would have wanted. Fàbregas has a put a poor challenge in on Sterling’s ankle and the Liverpool man is rolling around the ground, looking to be in some serious pain. Fàbregas gets a yellow card. Sterling gets the magic sponge. Updated at 4.45pm BST 4.00pm BST16:00 1 min Off we go. You know the score: Chelsea in blue, Liverpool in red. Chelsea get us going. They are playing right to left in the first half. 3.59pm BST15:59 “With all due respect, yous is all idiots,” blasts Chris Ross. “1986 saw the release of Big Trouble in Little China. The best fillum of that year and one of the finest of the decade.” 3.58pm BST15:58 The teams have emerged from the tunnel and into a sun-splashed west London. Liverpool, of course, were the first to come out and they were greeted by a chorus of boos from the home crowd. They line up either side of a blue carpet and out come the Chelsea boys to an almost deafening roar from the fans. You have to wonder in moments like this, does Gerrard have any regrets? Updated at 4.27pm BST 3.51pm BST15:51 The day’s first email comes from Paul Boardman. Here is what he has to say. “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Best film of 1986? Clearly, Sir, it is you who have gone insane. Aliens came out in 1986. Which is better – a smug Matthew Broderick playing hooky, or Sigourney Weaver kicking ass in a power-loader against a giant alien queen? Surely, there’s only one answer to that question.” 3.49pm BST15:49 Before the match gets going, Rodgers has the microphone shoved up his nose and is asked about Balotelli’s absence. He just says the striker is not in the squad. Nothing to do with injuries or anything like that. Yikes. It looks increasingly likely that the Italian won’t be at Anfield next season but we all knew that, didn’t we? Rodgers is also asked about the Guard of Honour and confirms that they’ll do it. 3.43pm BST15:43 “Having made a real mark returning to Liverpool from a loan at Derby,” writes my colleague, Paul Wilson, “Jordan Ibe has set his sights on becoming part of the future at Anfield.” Jordon Ibe is a player who likes to do things his own way. The career path that led him from London to Liverpool has many parallels with that of Raheem Sterling, though it would be a mistake to categorise him as some sort of follow-up act, even if he did share the England player’s shisha pipe notoriety in photographs published last month. For one thing Sterling has never been booked for celebrating a goal with his mum. That actually happened to Ibe in a league match when he was playing for Wycombe as a 15-year-old schoolboy. The goal went in, a screamer against Sheffield Wednesday which put Ibe into the record books as Wycombe’s youngest ever goalscorer, and he made straight for his family standing behind the perimeter fence on half way. Perhaps he might have got away with a cheery wave or a pointed gesture but a few hugs, kisses and backslaps later he was in the referee’s book for inciting the crowd. “I was just delighted, I’ll never forget that day,” the 19-year-old says now. “I could have done without the booking because I had school on the Monday and I felt I would never live it down. Everyone was great about it when I got there, though. My friends and the teachers were just the same, and in my science class we managed to watch the game again.” To say Ibe is close to his parents would be understating the case. He fancied Liverpool in the first place because his dad is a lifelong supporter, albeit from a distance while growing up in the south, and when Anfield came calling along with other Premier League representatives once word spread of Ibe’s talent as a 14-year-old, his mum insisted he stay on at school long enough to take his exams at 16. That is how he came to be playing for Wycombe while attending school in Camberwell. Once his 16th birthday arrived and Liverpool were still interested, Ibe’s parents moved to Merseyside to stay close to their son. Which they still need to do, in spite of Ibe’s increasing maturity, because they act as his advisers in lieu of an agent. You read that right. A 19-year-old Premier League prospect, already a success at first-team level and being tipped to join Gareth Southgate’s Under-21s for the European Championship in June, does not have an agent. Furthermore, he does not want one. “I don’t believe I need one,” he insists. Continued over here. 3.36pm BST15:36 Bad (if not unexpected) news for QPR fans. 3.30pm BST15:30 So there is no Matic in the starting side for Chelsea today but there is one Ruben Loftus-Cheek. This will be a surprise to everyone who is not friends with him on Facebook and no surprise to everyone who is friends with him on Facebook. He should sit deep beside Mikel with Fàbregas playing a more advanced role for the home side. Mikel and Loftus-Cheek are two of the five ch-ch-changes in Mourinho’s side. Zouma, Luís and Rémy are the other three. As for Liverpool, they are unchanged from their last game so Gerrard gets one more chance against an old enemy and a club he could’ve joined all those years ago while Coutinho makes his 100th appearance for the club. He got there very quick, didn’t he? With Mario Balotelli still out after a foot injury, Lambert leads the Liverpool line, which should give him ample opportunity to impress before his big move to Stamford Bridge. Updated at 3.33pm BST 3.15pm BST15:15 Team news The men injecting some much-needed entertainment into your late Sunday afternoon are as follows: Chelsea: Courtois; Ivanovic, Zouma, Terry, Filipe Luís; Mikel, Loftus-Cheek; Willian, Fàbregas, Hazard; Rémy. Subs: Beeney, Azpilicueta, Cahill, Aké, Matic, Cuadrado, Drogba. Liverpool: Mignolet; Johnson, Lovren, Skrtel, Can; Gerrard; Coutinho, Henderson, Lallana, Sterling; Lambert. Subs: Ward, Touré, Moreno, Lucas, Allen, Ibe, Sinclair. Referee: Andre Marriner 3.00pm BST15:00 Good afternoon Let’s clear something up from the start. Despite what José says, no one in their right mind thinks that Chelsea are not deserving champions. Repeat: no one. You can scour the Earth from From Land’s End to Lanzarote, from Talcahuano to Tuscaloosa, from Wollongong to Weifang, but you will not find a single person – a single person sane of soul that is – who thinks that Arsenal or Manchester United or Manchester City should be the side lifting the Premier League trophy skywards come season’s end. It would be like someone telling you they prefer cheese and onion crisps to salt and vinegar crisps or that Drake is better than Kendrick Lamar or that Top Gun Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was not the best movie of 1986, it’s impossible, scientifically impossible. Not only is it impossible, it is also illogical, scientifically illogical. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off had it all ... eh, sorry. Chelsea. Yes. Look away now if you don’t want to read some plaudits. By the time the final whistle goes on the final day of the season, Mourinho’s side will have spent – wait for it – 274 days in succession at the top of the Premier League. And yes that is a new record, as it will be 10 more than the previous one set by Manchester United in the 1993/94 season. That record has been built on their frankly outstanding home form – Chelsea are the only one of the 92 league teams who have not lost at home in the league this season – but their away form has been jaw-dropping too; 17 games, 14 wins, in case you are wondering. From back to attack, they have been imperious all season, so it made damn fine sense that when the PFA team of the year was announced six of those selected – Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry, Gary Cahill, Nemanja Matic, Eden Hazard and Diego Costa – all tog out in the Chelsea blue. Their back four that has conceded just 27 goals in 35 games and kept 17 clean sheets, as well as well helping ensure Chelsea have only trailed for 171 minutes so far this season. Up front, only Manchester City have out scored them and only Harry Kane and Sergio Agüero have out scored Diego Costa, despite his inexperience of the game over here and his gammy hamstrings. In between, meanwhile, the midfield has been as delightful and tasty as a well-made cheese cake. They have Hazard’s silky skills, Matic’s manly touch and Cesc Fàbregas’ fantastic passing. What more could you ask for for, eh? Well if you are Mourinho, then you’ll ask for more names on the PFA team. “There should have been more Chelsea players,” he tooted. “All of them should have been Chelsea.” He is exaggerating, of course, but only a bit, and if you have the time and inclination you could make a pretty strong case for the inclusion of Thibaut Courtois and Fàbregas. But we don’t, not now. Maybe another time, eh? So, deserving? Yes. Delightful? Not always but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Silk and steel (in the shape of being able to sit back and frustrate opponents) is the way to win the Premier League and no one did it better than Chelsea. Come the season’s end, they will have two trophies in the cabinet and that is what the history books will show. Liverpool, by contrast, will have none. That means three seasons without a trophy for Brendan Rodgers. The last Liverpool manager to do that was Phil Taylor, way back when he was in charge of the then second-division club from 1956-59. “No matter how great has been the disappointment of the directors at our failure to win our way back to the first division,” said Taylor at the time of his resignation, “it has not been greater than mine. I made it my goal. I set my heart on it and strove for it with all the energy I could muster. Such striving has not been enough and now the time has come to hand over to someone else to see if they can do better.” There is no doubt that Rodgers, like Taylor, has strove for success with all the energy he can muster but once more he has come up short. And so there are legitimate questions about his future at the club, just as there was towards the end of Taylor’s reign. It is hard to see how FSG will deal with this one. Will they show patience and reason that Rodgers did well considering injuries and the loss of Luis Suárez and thus deserves another shot? At a club like Liverpool, a three-year trophy should be unacceptable but then they sacked Kenny Dalglish after he won two in one season. What complicates the equation more is that there are potential replacements who could well be available, replacements who have worked with the club before and replacements who have spent their last few years in Germany. We don’t need to name names do we? We do? OK, well let’s just call them Rafa B and Jürgen K. No, that’s too obvious. Let’s call them R Benítez and J Klopp. Both have a proven track record at home and in Europe and would be confident of improving upon Rodgers’ work. Their reputation and body of work might also mean that recruiting the right kind of players improves – Rodgers and that committee have been desperately poor in this respect. On the outside, Rodgers will smile that smile and utter defiant sound bites but inside he must be nervous. A win today would obviously ease those nerves but even then it might be enough to ensure his side are playing Champions League ball next season (especially after Manchester United’s win yesterday) or ensure he is in charge come the August sunshine. And it’s not like Mourinho is going to let his players act like they are on the beach sipping Japanese whiskey is it? The Portuguese manager has yet to lose to Arsenal, Liverpool and the two Cottonopolis clubs since making his way back to the Premier League and he won’t want that record besmirched today just because the title is wrapped up in a blue and white bow. “We want to win our matches.” he said before this match. “We have three difficult games. We don’t need to win, but we want to try to win points.” Anyway. Will Liverpool do it? Stick around to find out. Team news and 90 minutes of hot footballing action is on its way. BLAOOW! Kick-off: 4pm |