Given the short amount of time between this post and the last, you may assume that I have not had any sleep, thus negating yet another of my recent plans. I was up late finishing up those bastard Music Listings, and when I was finally done, the Chelsea-Liverpool match was on TV, so I went straight to watching that. Turns out Liverpool won (woo-hoo!), and instead of just going to bed, I thought I might try to get some more work done. I think I've figured it out: I'm still feeling residue from the buzz I got by finishing the last installment of work, so it's like I'm buzzing to get the rest over with. Liverpool's victory was a tasty bonus.
Speaking of the match, well I can't say Liverpool outplayed Chelsea. Definitely not the strongest starting line-up you could imagine: captain
Steven Gerrard injured and sitting in as Sky Sports guest commentator instead of being on the bench with his mates; dodgy
Jerzy Dudek in goal, only because
Chris Kirkland broke his finger and will be out for two months, injury-prone bastard;
Stephane Henchoz at right back, probably because
Igor Biscan has been half-decent at centre back and the regular right backs are all crocked (and
Jon Otsemobor didn't even get on the bench);
Djimi Traore at left back instead of
John-Arne Riise, never a good sign;
Emile Heskey starting up front, presumably due to his goal against Yeovil in the FA Cup, when he got off the subs bench; and
Bruno Cheyrou. 'Nuff said.
Michael Owen was on the bench, but all he did was just grin on the touchline and didn't get to make his long-awaited comeback.
To be fair, it looked like Chelsea were having a stinker themselves. Hernan Crespo got injured in the 10th minute and had to be taken off. I hoped that was a good sign, and it turned out that it was, as their strikeforce was practically useless for most the game, with Adrian Mutu getting caught offside loads of times. Neither side had many clear chances. But then the unthinkable happened: Henchoz hit a long pass from the back, Heskey - facing his own goal - chested the ball down to Cheyrou, spun around and ran for the wing, Cheyrou passed it back to Heskey and ran goalwards, Heskey put in a cross that John Terry couldn't block, and Cheyrou put it in the net. Fancy that: two players often considered two of the most useless, combining for what would eventually be the winning goal, which in turn became Liverpool's first win at Stamford Bridge in almost 14 years.
To be honest, I'm not that much of a hater of Cheyrou, Heskey and even
Gerard Houllier, unlike most Liverpool fans I know. Sure, I get pissed off when the team loses and certain players perform like hicks at the local field. But I dunno why, I just can't seem to hate them with a vengeance. I can only hope that the players will come good in the end and the team gets back on its feet. So it was pretty heartening to see Cheyrou and Heskey bringing the goods.
After the goal, nothing much happened in terms of Liverpool goalscoring opportunities. Elsewhere though, it was heart-stopping. Dudek got injured and had to be replaced by
Patrice Luzi, who had never played in the Premiership before. Of all the matches in which to throw in an inexperienced substitute goalie...and sure enough, it would've been 1-1 if Mutu wasn't having a stinker of a match and hit the post, with Luzi stranded. Luckily Luzi fared better on the following attack, though it can't be a good sign that two out of the three main 'keepers could screw up at any moment when they're on the pitch.
Speaking of Mutu, he managed to get
El-Hadji Diouf sent off in the most bizarre manner: they had an argument, and as Mutu was walking away, he sort of got his foot tangled up with Diouf's, but the linesman thought that Diouf tripped him up on purpose. So the ref gave him a second yellow card, and he was off. D'oh. Well at least the midfield's reserves at pretty good:
Vladimir Smicer?
Anthony Le Tallec? Take your pick.
Naturally, 10 men meant being bombarded for the remainder of the match. But since Chelsea were sucking badly, even Traore managed to come up smelling like roses with a couple of very timely interceptions. Four minutes of added time had me biting my nails, but when the whistle went, I was dead chuffed. I'm sure the team, and GH especially, were too. On to the next match, and they'd better not screw up, otherwise all this will have been for naught...
And thus concludes today's football commentary. Back to work...if said commentary hasn't sapped all my energy and creativity, that is. Think I'll take a rest...and maybe put the Renewed Work Ethic back in its grave...
