Liverpool vs. Chelsea: *Bumper* Post-Match Analysis

Paul Tomkins, Andrew Beasley, Daniel Rhodes and other TTT regulars will give their thoughts on the match for 24 hours after the game, so the article received via email is unlikely to be the final version. There's statistics from the match and videos too.

Post-Match Thoughts

Paul Tomkins

While the Reds didn’t have the toughest start to the season, I reject the “easy” narrative when the club has also gone to AC Milan and Manchester United (who were not as mired in the muck at the time), and won in comfort and style; and that nine wins from any ten games is par for the course.

To have had then beaten Chelsea, and been a point clear at the top (should be three but for Man City’s continued luck with officials), and be able to go to Arsenal next week and lose and still be above them, is not what anyone was saying when they looked at this “easy” fixture list; ditto the two wins from two in the Champions League, and 10 from 11 for Arne Slot overall.

Chelsea bought pace with their billion pounds, and loaded their bloated squad with it, but even when chasing the game, couldn’t even create a full expected goal.

Edit: Just been sent a still of Jota already hitting the deck as Colwill is in our half, and 4-5 yards behind Jota and Tosin. Remember, this is after the initial foul, too, which was the grab, before Jota is down.

I noted yesterday that this kind of thing is an optical illusion for refs, because by the time they stop play and then look, the player who was not going to get back is suddenly back. It’s like when a striker puts the ball past the keeper, and they say he wasn’t going to get it anyway, when he would likely have got it as he would have been running! Once he’s stopped, the ball obviously seems to move away at more speed, but it’s often only moving at 10mph if knocked past a keeper.

Clearly, there’s no way Colwill could be said to be getting back, given that a Times article on Arsenal today noted that “... the rules don’t allow for guesswork or estimating the speed of one player against another. Red was a fair call.”

The VAR should freeze the frame at the moment like the image above, but they didn’t. They freeze the image for all kinds of other things, like showing Sanchez’s contact on the ball. But the freeze-frame shows that Jota would have been clean through, and they didn’t show that.

The above image proves it’s a red-card offence, certainly in line with yesterday. It only has to be a goalscoring opportunity, and if Jota isn’t fouled, he’s in towards goal. If you’re beyond the last man when the foul happens, that should be simple; allowing the defender to then close the gap and saying he was in line is clearly bullshit.

(What is the linesman doing? As there isn’t a Chelsea player who isn’t in shot, is he where he expects the players to be had they kept running?)

[End of addition!]

The majority of my analysis and the analysis of the others follows for subscribers only.