It’s the first major semi-final of the season and the Blues are involved. Club historian Rick Glanvill and club statistician Paul Dutton have the first-leg facts and figures… TALKING POINTS After the biggest away league victory of his time at Chelsea, at Swansea, Jose Mourinho was asked whether this evening’s match was a ‘big game’, given that Manchester City arrive at the Bridge in 10 days for a potentially defining match in the league. ‘Our next game is our biggest,’ he replied. ‘Always.’ Once teams arrive at the semi-final stage this cup’s significance is ramped up: eyes on the prize. The Blues manager recalls his first final win against Liverpool with immense affection but also recognition that it made winners of his squad. Likewise Brendan Rodgers recalled joining the Blues as a youth coach under Mourinho in 2004 and witnessing first-hand the galvanising effect success in that final had on the Londoners’ squad. ‘Over the last 10 years,’ Rodgers said, ‘they have shown once you win the first one, you can go on and sustain it.’ He will be determined to field the strongest possible side and reach Wembley himself. As a keen student of Shankly and Paisley he will know Liverpool managers from their golden age treated the League Cup as an aperitif before the main title successes of the season. The winners of this tie will face Tottenham or Sheffield United, who play at White Hart Lane tomorrow, in the final at Wembley on Sunday 1 March. Key Stat Tonight marks our 30th semi-final in 21 years and the 47th occasion over our near 110-year history we have reached the last four of a major tournament. By the end of May Chelsea and Liverpool will have played each other an extraordinary 40 times in 11 seasons since October 2004 – more, should we meet in the FA Cup. Familiarity has bred a non-geographic rivalry of the sort the Blues once enjoyed with Yorkshire’s Leeds United. The Reds were defeated at home by Chelsea earlier this season. Rodgers’ side are unbeaten at Anfield since that loss, winning two games and drawing four since then and are 16 points down on last season’s corresponding fixtures. Only neighbours Everton have suffered a more troubling lapse. Some of the factors involved are obvious. Former Blue Daniel Sturridge has been unavailable for most of the campaign and their talisman Luis Suarez departed for Barcelona. The pair contributed over half Liverpool’s tally of 101 top-flight goals and without them the team are averaging a goal a game fewer than last season. The corollary to Suarez’s departure was the arrival of lots of new players, many needing time to adapt to English football, while qualification for the Champions League meant less time to work on organisation and tactics. Even though they quickly dropped out of Europe’s elite competition at the group stage, the Europa League, with even more matches, will clog up their schedule. Firepower could be a decisive issue in this tie as away goals count should the scores remain level after extra time at Stamford Bridge. Liverpool have kept just three clean sheets in 11 home matches (four in 11 on the road) and hit the net 15 times, conceding 11. Chelsea have managed three shutouts in 12 away trips but eight in 10 at the Bridge. Liverpool’s goal difference on the road is flat zero while the Blues’ is +11. A fourth successive win against the Merseysiders and third at Anfield would be unprecedented. We are likely to see strong starting line-ups on both sides. Mourinho’s men arrived at this stage by beating Bolton at the Bridge and Shrewsbury and Derby away. Liverpool saw off Middlesbrough and Swansea at home, then Championship leaders Bournemouth away. The two legs of the semi-final straddle FA Cup ties this coming weekend. Chelsea will welcome League One Bradford City while in-form Championship side Bolton Wanderers go to Anfield, perhaps allowing Rodgers marginally less room for team rotation over the three games. Seven of the nine Premier League matches played on Saturday and Sunday ended in victory for the visitors; on an average weekend that figure would be three or fewer. Chelsea were the biggest winners but Liverpool also enjoyed a confidence-boosting 2-0 success at struggling Aston Villa, our next hosts in the league. The Blues’ comprehensive win was the heaviest top-flight defeat on home soil in Swansea’s history. Oscar, who has scored or set up eight goals in his last nine league games, struck our second-fastest of season at the Liberty, recorded as 49 seconds. The quicker one came at Everton after 34 seconds from the boot of Diego Costa. Everton v Chelsea The Spain striker’s brace on Saturday made it five against the Swans this season. He has now struck 17 times in 19 league appearances but has yet to find the net in any other competition. The five goals at the Liberty extended Chelsea’s league total to 51 – 20 more than Liverpool have managed over their campaign. The fifth by Andre Schürrle was his first league goal since the opener against Man City at the Etihad in September. The result might have been worse for the Jacks but for their woodwork, twice left shuddering by Willian. With Gylfi Sigurdsson’s shot added, the Liberty goalposts have now been struck 17 times, more than any other in the Premier League. John Terry is now the clear third highest appearance-maker for the Blues with 649, 650 should he feature this evening. That is a truly remarkable landmark, especially at a competitive club like Chelsea in the age of squad rotation. WE HAVE HISTORY Chelsea and Liverpool have faced each other on 26 occasions in all cup competitions (including Champions League and Community Shield). Chelsea have won 11, Liverpool 10, and five have been draws. We have never met before at the semi-finals stage of this competition but contested the 2004/05 final at the Millennium Stadium. Chelsea concede early to a John Arne-Riise thump but turned things round with an own goal by Steven Gerrard and strikes from Didier Drogba and Mateja Kezman. Antonio Nunez gave Rafael Benitez’s side late hope but it finished 3-2, bringing Jose Mourinho and his team the first silverware of a trophy-laden era. The highlights are below. Play HIGHLIGHTS: LIVERPOOL LEAGUE CUP FINAL 04/05 Our most recent League Cup visit to Anfield was in the third round on Wednesday 1 November 2000. Claudio Ranieri’s Blues had thumped the hosts, then managed by Gerard Houllier, 3-0 in the league the month before. Yet the Merseysiders opened the scoring through Danny Murphy with a strike from the left. Young John Terry was part of a changed side in which Slavisa Jokanovic earned his first start, and it took a while for the visitors to find fluency. Inevitably, Gianfranco Zola was behind our best moments, and he converted Celestine Babayaro’s cross to equalise. What was less predictable was the Italian maestro beat Reds keeper Pegguy Arphexad with his head. A feisty encounter remained tied into extra time, until Robbie Fowler hit his first goal for almost a year. Emile Heskey was sent off before the end for lashing out but Chelsea pressure came to nothing and the game ended 2-1. Our clubs have been paired together in five previous knockout semi-finals. The Reds progressed in both FA Cup encounters in 1965 and 2006, and in three two-legged Champions League semis Liverpool won in 2005 and 2007, with Chelsea succeeding in 2008 en-route to the Moscow fina
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:49:00 +0000
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