Yawn
The most predictable of outcomes turned out exactly as predicted: Liverpool and Chelsea ended up goalless. Still, we’d had excellent goalless draws between these two recently.
Not today.
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In a season that can best be described as shaky for both clubs, they combined to produce a snooze-fest. I don’t say this lightly. In the first half, I missed some 15 minutes because I dozed off on the couch. Forget the poor commentators; it’s their job to find something to talk about in games like this. But there wasn’t even enough of crowd noise in the background to keep me from enjoying a catnap.
Hard as it is to believe, it got worse in the second half. About ten minutes in I got an incoming call from my accountant, and chose to answer it mid-game. I still looked at the screen during the few minutes I was on the phone, and my extreme faith in the lackluster display in front of me was righteously validated.
As in, nothing happened.
Clearly, I don’t have a lot to write about. The Blues hit the net twice, and both were rightly (and quite easily) disallowed by VAR. Tellingly, Liverpool’s best shot on goal came from Joe Gomez, a player who has never scored a competitive goal since playing in senior squads. Like, anywhere. It at least forced an actual save out of Kepa, who did well to stay alert to it, since it really did come out of nowhere. Chelsea did better, overall, and were they a better team or at least in good form, they would have murdered the Reds today.
As it was, the game was illustrative of both teams’ struggles at this time. There was no man-of-the-match, to be fair. Maybe N’Golo Kante? He played reasonably well, which is more than can be said for most of the others.
The thing is, the Gunners are coming to town Sunday, and they will not be lackluster. Will we get the Liverpool that stomped United? The one who got destroyed by City? Or the one that lost to Bournemouth and drew a rudderless Chelsea?
Who knows?
If there is one ray of hope, at least Liverpool does seem to play better at Anfield this season.
