The Nastiest Kid in the Playground: Liverpool Preview
BIG EARS IN ALL HER GLORY
By dixon9
April 8 2009
Here we go again. Yet another high-tension encounter against Liverpool in the latter stages of the Champions League. Against the foe that even just the thought of losing to is enough to entertain the thought of giving up football altogether – anyone but them!
There’s little point in going into the reasons why this is so – we all KNOW why don’t we? (and it’s a sentiment that fans of many other clubs can relate to).
One Chelsea fan alikened them to the annoying kid at school - and he´s right; Them experiencing success for us is akin to the nastiest, sneering, pasty-faced kid in the playground receiving the school award for pupil of the year.
Once this quarter-final tie is decided we will have faced Liverpool 10 times in the last five seasons in the Champions League – a fixture that is only beaten by the meetings of Bayern Munich v Real Madrid in this competition (12 times). Encounters in all competitions will have been 24 times over the same period (surely some sort of record?).
There is another interesting fact for us about this season though (a fact picked up by the Blue and White Army Chelsea site); this is the 50th anniversary of our club in European competition – we played in the Fairs Cup in 1960 getting knocked out in the QF´s by Blgrade (at a time when Liverpool were in the 2nd Division).
We SHOULD have been in European competition when we would have been the first British club to play in the European Cup.
We won the league in 1955 but then bowed to the FA´s “recommendation” that we do not compete against the upstart Johnny Foreigner clubs who dared to play the game in a pan-european competition - a game which was invented on our fair isle (again, tonight’s opponents were in the 2nd Division).
Anyway...
"It is not a good time for either of us to be playing the other," said Benitez.
"It is a big challenge for both teams. They have a good team with experience and a manager with experience. This game is 50-50.
"I have great respect for a massive club and a very good team. We are both playing in big competitions. We are both big teams and it will be down to just one or two mistakes.
"Keeping a clean sheet is important in the first game for both teams, I would prefer to play at Anfield second, but that is not the case so we must get on with it."
There’s a compliment or two in there (and I doubt they would have been forthcoming in such fashion if Mourinho had still been at the helm) and Benitez is right about the clean sheet when you look at the stats of teams with the home advantage in the return leg (interestingly if the stats bear out this season then the final would be between ourselves and Arsenal).
"Of teams who score away from home, 70% go through to the next round; if you can score in the away game, that's always a big blow for the home team," said Hiddink.
Of course, the trick in producing an exciting match against Liverpool is to score first against them so that they are forced to open up and attack (our 4-1 away win in the league a few seasons ago and the 3-2 at the Bridge in the CL last season came about because of this) - IF they score first it is almost the kiss of death to the match in itself.
We will need to show some balls this time around at Anfield though for a change. We haven’t scored a single goal there ourselves in the last five seasons in the CL (Riise´s goal being the only time the ball has hit the net in our favour) - a truly pathetic record. Hopefully things will be different this time around.
"We will not just wait. Wherever we can, we will try and take the initiative," said Hiddink.
"We will not sit back and wait until we are overcome. That is not the way to play football. That's not my philosophy or the team's concept,"
Both clubs have been accused of producing “sh.i.t. on a stick” encounters although it should be borne in mind that last seasons CL meetings did produce a total of 7 goals.
Liverpool will be without Mascherano through suspension and Benayoun will also apparently not be ready.
Drogba has been wrapped in cotton wool and hopefully should start.
Arbeloa and Dossena will be suspended if booked and the same goes for Anelka, Ashley Cole and John Terry.
Oh well – let’s get it over with!
Liverpool (from): Reina, Arbeloa, Carragher, Skrtel, Hyypia, Aurelio, Dossena, Babel, Gerrard, Lucas, Alonso, Riera, Kuyt, Torres, Agger, Cavalieri, Ngog, Benayoun, Spearing.
Chelsea (from): Cech, Bosingwa, Ivanovic, Terry, Carvalho, Alex, Mancienne, A Cole, Ballack, Lampard, Essien, Mikel, Kalou, Anelka, Malouda, Drogba, Hilario, Deco, Di Santo, Belletti.
Possible line-up: 
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CECH
IVANOVIC
ALEX
TERRY
COLE
ESSIEN
BALLACK
LAMPARD
MALOUDA
DROGBA
KALOU
COME ON CHELSEA
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hilario
mancienne
carvalho
deco
anelka
mikel
belletti
COME ON CHELSEA
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Cocked it up at first! Not used to all this Iiiiiiissssstorrrreeeee!
"It is born out of hypocrisy and fundamental insecurity. There have been two kids on the block for the past 12 years. Suddenly, there is a third and that one is threatening to be more successful than the others and they don’t like it." P Kenyon.