Armchair review.

I can see it being tough to watch this game on TV today. That’s regardless of how the game itself pans out, I’m referring to the crap coming from the mouths of those paid by Sky TV.

Andy Gray has decided that should Liverpool or Arsenal lose today they can kiss goodbye to the league. Kind of “Game over, and I hate saying that,” Istanbul 2005.

Richard Keys has followed the same party line, which is how it comes across. As if a meeting at Sky has taken place saying that’s how they’ll bill this. Actually what they billed this afternoon as is even more cringeworthy - “Grand Slam Sunday”. As well as us playing Chelsea, Arsenal meet Man United. The top four from last season all face each other.

Eventually we are handed over to the match commentators. Alan Smith (the ex-Arsenal player) and Ian Darke (the boxing commentator). I might as well turn the telly off now and go somewhere else for a couple of hours.

I’ll try and get the red button working and switch the commentary off.

Ian Darke has already said something or other about how many times Rafa Benitez has NOT named an unchanged team. Darke is actually worse at commentary than the current John Motson, and that’s saying something.

As expected, the Reds aren’t starting 4-4-2 with Gerrard on the left. This is the team sheet, as set out by Sky…

Reina
Finnan Agger Carragher Warnock
Pennant Alonso Sissoko Gerrard
Bellamy Kuyt

We wouldn’t have expected that to be the case of course, and it soon became clear it wasn’t the case. What we’d call it is fluid - and as soon as I say that then so does the boxing man.

After just four minutes Mike “Man U” Riley has already got a Liverpool player in the book. Most referees see a foul like that after less than five minutes and decide a talking-to will suffice. Not Riley of course.

Ten minutes gone and boxing man talks for what seems like four hours after the “ref” has blown his whistle for a free kick to Liverpool. Yes, a free kick to Liverpool. Pay attention! Twelve minutes gone and Darke is still saying “so very, very close”. Where’s that red button?…

Can’t Sky see how bad some of their team are? Andy Grey, bluenose that he is, doesn’t do too badly, Martin Tyler is OK too, but then it’s harder to find anything of any great quality.

Can’t the FA see how bad some of their referees are? No names mentioned.

Kuyt hits the bar with some power. So unlucky. And Gerrard has now spent the last bit of time over on the left after all.

Kuyt did blast that ball - hurry up Dirk, get a goal soon please, let’s not have another situation like we got last season with Crouch, where we knew he was good, but the press enjoyed having a go…

19 minutes gone, Carragher takes the ball away from Essien without touching Essien. Essien falls to the floor like he’s been sliced in the ankles by a machette. Replay proves it, Alan Smith: “Carragher didn’t get much of the ball there”.

Reina saves the resulting free-kick. Then boxing man and Smith talk about whether he should have been axed after that mistake last week.

“Liverpool couldn’t half do with a win here,” says the boxer boy.

22 mins. Riley misses what Bellamy does to Terry. A little trip. So Smith says “His manager won’t be pleased with him when he sees that.” Where’s that mute button?

24 mins - excellent tackle from Alonso, who’s probably waiting for a chance to deal with Fwankie Lampard. And Bellamy then ruled offside when he wasn’t. Where’s that valium?

Shock! 25 minutes and Riley has written the name of a Chelsea player in his book! I won’t write it down mind, it’s not one that is easily spelled. And another offside against Liverpool.

Shock II! Drogba booked too. About time as well, Riley said he’s already let him off before now. The free kick also results in a goal for the Reds.

Gerrard takes a corner again, next thing we know the ball is in our half. Gerrard’s not the best corner taker we’ve got (Alonso for one is better) so I’d like to see Stevie hovering outside the box at corners instead. That’s because he’s got arguably the best shot in the side.

35 mins. Some fancy work from Kuyt and co, but it didn’t quite work off - as soon as Kuyt has had a bit more time with his team-mates you feel these little things will come off, and to good effect.

I’ve noticed players slipping quite a lot on this pitch today, and then it occurred to me. It was’nt replaced all that long ago. Chelsea kept it a mess until they’d played us and Barcelona. It’s already showing signs of wear and tear!

Reina looking confident again, good to see none of this knee-jerk stuff from the press and pundits has got to him. He’s one of the reasons Liverpool improved so much in the League last season.

And after 41 minutes Reina is beaten, but there wasn’t much he could have done. Drogba has not been as good for Chelsea as he was before he joined them, but that was a sign of why they paid so much for him. Chelsea 1 Liverpool 0.

Boxing commentator Darke completely misses the fact that Sissoko has been booked, but is saved shortly after by the director. And after 45 minutes Sissoko is judged to have fouled Lampard. A look at the replay shows that Lampard “made the most of it” as commentators like to say, but this pair are saying Sissoko “is fortunate” to still be on.

46.27 - Gerrard shoots at goal when he could have crossed to two Reds. Oh well. 46.54 - half time and Liverpool don’t deserve to be one goal down.

Second half - Smith is slagging Pennant off. Red Button pressed (I was trying to resist). As the button is taking its time to work, Darke is now saying we are out of the race for the league. After 50 minutes of this game.

50 minutes and “Sissoko has gone” screams Darke. “Not a second yellow either” he says. Actually it was Michael Ballack, for stamping on Sissoko. PAY ATTENTION!

52 minutes and Sissoko is still being treated - it was a bad stamp by Ballack. And a rare red card for an opponent when Riley is ref!

58 minutes gone and it’s got all the hallmarks of a boring 30 minutes to come. Aurellio has come on, Liverpool have wasted a corner, Chelsea have just earned one. I didn’t get round to sorting out that red button - as soon as I pressed it we had the sending off and so I got out of it quickly.

60 minutes gone and Rafa is trying to give out instructions, clearly seen on the screen. He looks annoyed. Then Gerrard has another shot at goal that’s easily saved - it’s time he tried passing one today really. And I’m one of his fans!

61 minutes gone and Agger is elbowed in the face by Drogba. “Completely accidental” says the co-commentator with the dodgy accent. Alan Smith is poor and clearly never likely to get a job in football itself now he’s finished playing.

63 minutes gone and some excellent work from Gerrard is completely ignored by boxing boy. He’s going on about something totally irrelevant. He does, after seeing a replay of Drogba elbowing Agger, say “Looked different from that angle didn’t it?” Smith, clearly embarrassed, mumbles something mainly unintelligable about Drogba being too busy concentrating on the ball to be doing anything wrong.

65 minutes and on come Arjen Robben. The cheat.

65 and a half minutes gone and Arjen Robben has his first dive.

It was Sissoko, already booked, who was victim of the disgraceful dive by Robben. He is substituted - wisely - by Benitez before he’s sent off due to another Oscar attempt by Robben. Zenden is his replacement, to cries of “Chelsea reject”. Zenden left Chelsea to join Middlesborough at a time when Chelsea were no more likely to win anything than Boro.

68 minutes gone and Arjen Robben has his second dive. Penalty appeal turned down by Riley, who has shocked me today so far. I can’t see it lasting.

73 minutes and it’s been a bit of “end to end” action, without really any chances coming for either team. Robben managed to get the ball, run with it, then pass it - without diving! Kuyt and Bellamy have been kept very quiet today, but I can’t see Crouch being thrown on would make much difference. As soon as I write that, Kuyt has a header on goal, but it goes wide with him under pressure.

75 minutes and a stat - attempts on goal - Chelsea 3 Liverpool 7, on target 3-4. Then Gerrard is clearly pushed to the ground by Fwankie in the box. Play on says the referee who is reverting back to his normal stance on how to referee games involving Liverpool.

77.30 and on comes Crouchie, in place of Craig Bellamy. A couple of minutes later and Kuyt is pushed over, referee gives Chelsea free kick and Kuyt has a go at the ref. Nice to see the passion from Kuyt.

Ten minutes left and Darke says “They are slow starters, why are they slow starters?” after reading his stats book. Kuyt blazes over the bar from 12 yards. It was one of those where it came to him too high for him to be able to shoot, but he had to have a go.

82 minutes and Crouch, as ever, is penalised for winning the ball from a cross. Officials need to look at this again and stop falling for it - Crouch is winning the ball fairly but it looks different because of his height. A replay is shown of what should have been a clear penalty for Liverpool after Fat Fwank pushed over the player that jilted him and his club. Alan Smith? “It happened so quickly”. I hope you Arsenal fans are proud to hear your former player become so much of a Chelsea fan.

84 minutes and it seems to be all over now. A complete 100% dive from Robben. No doubt whatsoever that it was a dive. Replay makes sure that any doubters are put right. Alan Smith? “Oh, there wasn’t much in that was there?” I give up. And Robben got the free kick, and a chance to waste a bit more time. Darke is still going on about Liverpool’s season being over.

86 minutes gone and if this does, as now seems likely, turn into a defeat, it’s going to be remembered for the wrong things again. It doesn’t look like Chelsea are down to ten men, they’ve scored a great goal, but the referee is having a bad time spotting things. Chelsea are cheats, but don’t need to be. They aren’t bad enough that they have to cheat.

88 minutes and there is talk from Darke that there will be 5 minutes added on at the end. We’ll see.

Cech fumbles and gets away with it. No stick for him from the commentators - if it had been Reina you know there’d have been plenty of stick.

Liverpool really need to show Chelsea what they can do - they aren’t doing though. The clock is ticking round to 90 minutes - so what will there be for added time?

The board doesn’t work well, but we can see five minutes has been added. And Cech gets a yellow for time wasting - but surely it should result in another minute being added on too!

92 minutes and we’ve not been near their half in the last two. Cech fumbles again when we do get their, but gets praised from boxing man.

92.48 - Crouch heads at goal, but it goes straight to Cech, who this time doesn’t fumble.

93.20 and we are passing it backwards, then out of play. I am not going to write what I am saying at this point.

94 minutes and Drogba takes forever to walk off the pitch for the substition. Be interesting to see if the ref does add any of this on.

95 minutes up.

Cech gets the ball, and the referee is still playing on. But that’s it. 96 minutes played and we’ve lost.

Did we deserve to lose? No. Did we deserve to win? No. Is our season over? No - but we’ve got to work harder now to win the league this season.

Today’s referee for the match at Stamford Bridge between Chelsea and Liverpool is Mike Riley.

I can guarantee that most Reds reading that let out a groan. Those that didn’t let out a groan probably heard the news elsewhere earlier on in the week, so they had already groaned.

I’m sure he doesn’t really hate Liverpool - he just gives that impression. He gets a lot of decisions right, but often seems inconsistent. Benefit of the doubt means benefit of our opposition. He’ll play to the letter of the law if it hurts us, but he’ll use common sense if it will benefit our opposition.

My biggest memory of him was when we lost at Old Trafford a few years back in a game I try hard to forget. Hyypia was sent off after about six minutes, United got and scored a penalty, Gerard Houllier lost the plot by making a defensive substitution. Mike Riley can’t be blamed for the odd choices made by Houllier, but the whole game was refereed as if Mike Riley had a United shirt on under his referee’s top.

Graham Poll, fresh from making a show of himself in the World Cup this summer was handed a high-profile derby last week and hardly redeemed himself.

I doubt Riley is a hater of LFC, but it will be interesting to see how he copes with a high-profile game, because he’s never really been very good at any of ours in the past.

Last season’s fixture at the Bridge between these sides saw Pepe Reina sent off. Arjen Robben, cheat that he so clearly is, was touched lightly by Pepe Reina and went flying as if he’d been actually been hit, not just touched. Looking back now and that act saw the last few pundits blind to what Chelsea are really all about open their eyes. We lost the game, we probably would have done anyway, but Chelsea lost that last little bit of support from any neutrals.

I hate cheats, I’m sure most of us do, and we don’t want to see them get away with it. That includes anyone in a Red shirt cheating - I’d rather lose than win cheating.

Can Mike Riley deal with cheats? We’ll see today, but I really hope he can deal with the fact that both sides need to be treated equally.

The questions do have to be asked though: Who chooses referees? Do they look at how those refs have performed in matches involving those sides before? Do they care?

Dave Maddock’s review of Saturday’s best-forgotten defeat at Goodison is headlined “KICKED IN THE LONG BALLS“, with a sub-heading of “Rafa: We can’t defend against Route One (PSST.. LET’S HOPE YOUR EURO RIVALS PSV EINDHOVEN AREN’T LISTENING..)”

That’s a valid point - surely it’s best not to say what it was that unnerved your side. Rafa has spoken like this before, for example pointing out after defeat by Bolton that we couldn’t handle their “physical” approach to the game (he meant “being kicked off the park like they were playing a Sunday league team” of course but had to hold back). Now Everton have got the better of us with their version of playing to win regardless of how pretty it looks, and Rafa says we can’t manage against teams that hoof the ball all the time.

It’s not totally true of course - we’ve managed to hold on against teams using the long-ball tactic before. For example, every time we’ve beaten Chelsea under that Portuguese bloke we’ve had to face that tactic for the last 20 minutes or so. Even though they’ve sold Huth, they’ll still be looking to Hoof it on Sunday should we be ahead towards the end. It’s about time we beat them in the league too.

When Rafa speaks you need to listen not only to what he says but also to what he doesn’t say. He’s not saying that Liverpool can’t deal with the long ball game, more that they wouldn’t deal with it on Saturday. As a result he wants them to get working on it again. “Early in the game they sent up one or two long balls and we were scared. “We were too nice and you can’t be too nice in games like these. You can’t be scared, you have to go out there and be strong when other teams play long balls.”

Sounds like a few players will be getting long explanations of where they went wrong, at some point this week, if they’ve not done so already. If you work in a factory that makes medicine balls*, don’t be surprised if a Mr Ayesteran appears this week to order two dozen.

In fact the tough Spaniard who is so important to Rafa is likely to work hard on getting those players right mentally for games against the likes of Everton - because Rafa wants the attitude problems sorting: “You have to win the first ball and then you have to win the second ball as well. It is about attitude. It takes time to work on tactical things, but you can change your attitude in one minute if you really want to.”

Attitude is as important in a player as any instinctive skill - and Rafa is determined only to have players involved at the club if their attitude is right.

Liverpool’s players reported back for pre-season in dribs and drabs, and their involvement in pre-season friendlies varied too, depending on how much they’d been involved in the World Cup. Then no sooner had the season started (well, in between the Charity Shield and the first league game) than the players were off with their national sides for friendlies. Two league games were played, then it was off for more international work as the opening Euro2008 qualifiers were played. Now there’s a whole month before the next round of qualifiers, and hopefully a month where Rafa can work on tactics and Pako can work on attitude. Rafa said after Saturday: “We haven’t looked strong defensively this season but then we haven’t had time to work much together because of the internationals.”

What’s also mildly worrying is that he’s not exactly had any more time to work on those players between the derby and this fixture tomorrow. They played Saturday, trained to some extent the day after, flew to Holland today, play tomorrow. No doubt PSV have had similar problems with their players ahead of tomorrow’s game, but it’s something that does need to be looked at.

On the other hand it’s a good sign of how much success we’ve had if we are having these issues. Whilst LFC are trying to make the best of having little time to prepare for a European game, Everton haven’t even got a game.

I’d rather be a Red!

* I’ve no idea if medicine balls are made in factories or if indeed they even grow on trees. I just know that they are heavy and it would make a football seem much less scary to any players with a phobia for a leather footy if they were bombarded with medicine balls.

I know it’s an old joke, but it’s always worth repeating it during the run-up to a derby. In fact it cropped up in the Echo this week, no doubt resulting in numerous letters of complaint from Everton fans to the Echo’s office. The joke goes that Tim Cahill was asked if he felt the derby match was important: “It’s our Champions League Final,” replies the Aussie with the odd goal celebration. Then a Red shouts back: “Fine - tell him it’s our Simod Cup Final!”

At the risk of us getting a mailbox full of spiteful responses from the Blue side of Merseyside I’ll say this – it may be a joke, but it’s very close to the truth. Liverpool’s aim by the end of the season, if they get their wish, is to drop as few points as possible and to end up winning the league. They don’t want to lose to anyone, Everton are just another club they don’t want to lose to. If someone gave a Liverpool fan a choice of who they’d beat this season then of course Everton would be on that list, but put aside the emotions of the derby and Everton are just another side capable of causing an upset.

Even Rafa thinks that way: “If you ask me whether I prefer to win a derby match or win trophies I will always say win a trophy which is the most important thing, but if we can win a derby and a trophy then it makes it better.”

That’s not to say he doesn’t want us to win today: “I like to win the derby because it makes our supporters happy and you can see them smiling in the town. The derby is a very important game for us and I know how special it is for the supporters.”

A win for Everton today would see demands for an open-top bus tour to commemorate putting one over the Reds, but in reality Everton do have very little else to celebrate each season. Their joy at qualification for the Champions League and their achievement at finishing fourth saw them bring out all kinds of souvenirs, mainly going on about “Champions League – you’re having a laugh!” Then, when they found themselves knocked out of Europe, twice in the same season, as quickly as was possible, they realised they’d been a bit hasty in their celebrations.

I’d hate to be a blue.