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Plenty of positives to take from Liverpool’s draw at ChelseaI think with regards to the result, and in many ways the performance, a sense of perspective is wise from a Liverpool perspective. A point at Stamford Bridge, in any season, is an acceptable result, and in this instance Liverpool were playing against a team that has a new coach, with new ideas, and players who should be more motivated and more together than they were for the majority of last season. Some were new, others had points to prove, but all are full of quality.
It was a good start to the game for the Reds, and I thought we saw what they will be capable of doing to sides in that first half hour or so. They have a lot of players who are very good technically, who can see and execute a pass, and the movement of the forwards remains as sharp as any team in the Premier League. Had there been a little more precision in certain moments – Jota overhitting a pass to Diaz, Salah miscontrolling, Gakpo squaring when he might have gone alone – then they could have been two or three goals up.
The worry, naturally, is what happened after that opening spell, when Chelsea gained control of the game and were the dominant force, towards the end of the first half and then for much of the second. Liverpool didn’t keep the ball as well as they needed to, and when they did lose it, they did so in bad areas which meant their shape was exposed. That’s been a bit of a theme of pre-season, and even before that, so it’s definitely something that will need work – both on
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