Despite having played in Europe just a couple of days back, there was no sign of exhaustion in the game of the Chelsea players when they took on Liverpool on Saturday afternoon.
They were far from being fresh. Some of them were even playing with minor fitness issues, but, they did not let the level of their performance go down.
According to the boss Jose Mourinho, the thing which kept his not-so-fresh-players going in a tough atmosphere at Anfield was the will to win against the strong teams away from home.
Speaking in the post match press conference, Mourinho said “It was all about mental toughness. The physically freshness was obviously not there, but, we were determined to win in difficult conditions.”
It was Chelsea’s 9th win in their 11 games in the league this season. The remaining two games have been draws. They have looked completely untroubled against every opposition. They are 4 points clear at the top and their goal differential is +17.
Liverpool, which had finished second in the last season, seems to be missing Luis Suarez quite a bit. This defeat against Chelsea has got them out of the top 10 now. They are at no. 11 with just 14 points and a goal differential of -1.
For the second time consecutively, the Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers made a whole lot of changes in his starting XI. Seven players who had featured in the Champions League game against Real Madrid the other day got dropped.
The new set of players definitely showed a little bit of intent at the start, but, it was all Chelsea later on.
A couple of referee decisions could have gone in Liverpool’s favour. They could have got a penalty towards the end, but, there’s no denying that they were not as good as Chelsea on the day.