The reigning Premier League Champions have made their presence known in their second game of the season against their rivals, Chelsea. Liverpool took advantage of a red card given to Chelsea and scored two goals against the crippled 10-man team.
Red card kills the Blues' ambition
For most of the game, Chelsea kept up with the English champions and barely gave the Reds any room to move. It wasn't until late in the first half where things began to decline for the Blues. Andreas Christensen was shown a yellow card for tackling Sadio Mané. It was immediately reviewed and was escalated to a red card, sending Christensen out of the game and leaving Chelsea with only ten players on the field.
Later on, it was Mané who took care of the offensive side for Liverpool. The Senegalese scored in the 50th minute after he nodded the ball in from Roberto Firmino's assist from the right inside channel. Only 4 minutes later, Kepa Arrizabalaga made a dreadful mistake that ultimately cost them the game. He sent the ball in from out back, but it was intercepted by Mané, who then shot the ball in from six yards away for his second goal.
Jürgen Klopp was relieved in the second half of the game. The Liverpool manager said, "After the red card, the second half is a different game. We kept the ball rolling, let them run, scored the goals. Everybody had a hand in the result."
Thiago Alcantara makes his debut
Coming into the game, Klopp had already announced that Alcantara's debut yesterday was a maybe. And to everyone's delight, as soon as the Blues were depleted to 10, Klopp decided it was the best opportunity to test how Alcantara would fare with the rest of the Reds. Although the Spaniard, formerly from Bayern Munich, didn't have anything directly to do with the goals, his presence and control of the game's pace were very much seen as a midfielder. It will undoubtedly be more exciting to see how Alcantara will play with the rest of the Liverpool gang.
Lampard saw Chelsea perform better in Liverpool loss than Brighton win
Frank Lampard was pleased with their performance against a team such as Liverpool. For most of the first half, they were performing very well. After the game, Lampard said, "For chances, the first half was pretty even. The red card changes. Makes me go into a reshuffle, and against a team of that quality, it's obviously going to be really difficult. I think it could be given or not, Kepa was coming out. If anything, I'm surprised it's a yellow to start and gets changed."
He questioned the red card given to Christensen, but when it came to Kepa's error in Liverpool's second goal, he made no excuses. Lampard lamented, "Big mistake, clear mistake. When you reflect on the half, without that mistake and (if we) make the penalty, it's 1-1. In lots of ways I'm actually happier than I was after Brighton. Lots of individuals showed me lots of good things."
Chelsea is set to host Barnsley at the EFL later this week, and Liverpool will be facing Lincoln City the following day for the League Cup as well.
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