Chelsea defeat Liverpool

Chelsea are facing a battle with Everton in the semi-finals in the Carling Cup after defeating Liverpool 2-0 in the competition in the quarter finals of the competition. Arsenal and Tottenham will contest the other semi final.

Few chances were created early on, although both teams had an excellent opportunity denied by the opposition keeper in the first half, but both also saw a bit of the ball and looked to move it around. Liverpool's plan appeared center on the counter-attack, and was playing good one-touch football at times, with Lucas involved in much of it.

Chelsea’s best chance of the first half came when poor passes from Hobbs and Arbeloa put Lampard through on goal, with but Itandje did well to come out and make himself big. Minutes later, some of that one-touch football led to Crouch putting Lucas one-on-one with Cech, only to see the keeper make an excellent save.

The second half started much like the first, with Itandje forced into another brilliant save, punching away Essien’s fierce shot within the first 10 minutes. But in the 58th, Lampard was lucky to see his shot take a nasty deflection off of Jaime Carragher, who doesn’t deserve the run of luck he’s had at times this season and defended manfully all game long. 1-0, deadlock broken.

90 seconds later, Crouch and Mikel, who battled all game long, were at it again on the sidelines, and Crouch lunged two-footed, in the air after losing out. Best-case scenario, it was an awful example of a striker’s tackle. Worst case, it was stupid, petty, and uncharacteristic. Mikel may have hammed it up, and Crouch may not have made much contact, but it was assuredly a straight red, and most likely down to frustration from the result, a lack of fouls called on the opposition, and his own underwhelming performance.

Babel, and then Voronin, tried to forge a path up top on their own, but with Chelsea in front and Liverpool down to 10 men, it was always going to be slim pickings. And with a bench composed of Martin, Hyypia, Riise, El Zhar, and Benayoun, there wasn’t much that could be done, although I’ll still argue it was right to rest the players like Torres, Gerrard, and Kuyt.

Credit to Liverpool that they held out for as long as they did, and Shevchenko’s goal, from a Ballack flick after Bridge somehow worked out a cross, was one of the few shots Chelsea had from inside the box with Liverpool down to 10 men.