Premier League: Liverpool 1-1 Chelsea
The draw could feel like a defeat for Liverpool with a late goal by the Chelsea’s sub William. The point enables Chelsea to keep its place in the podium.
Down 1-0 with less than 10 minutes to play, Chelsea’s coach Antonio Conte launched his joker the Brazilian William and it quickly paid dividends.
The coach shares his opinion on the draw:
‘We must be pleased with the game, I think both teams played with great intensity from the start until the end,’ said Conte. ‘For us it was very difficult to play this game after long travelling and no rest for my players. Also, when you play a strong team it’s not simple, so we must be pleased because in the first half we were very solid and always dangerous in possession.
In the second half we created many chances to score and in our best moment we conceded the goal. We were unlucky when you see the dynamic of the goal but at the same time I was very happy to see a great reaction, great desire and a great will to not accept a bad result. We drew but we tried to win the game, so we must be pleased with the draw.’
On the opposite side for Liverpool, the Reds lost a good occasion on closing on with today’s opponent. Liverpool remains 11 points behind the leaders Manchester City. Coach Klopp comments:
“Very intense game, very difficult for us against what everybody knows is a very strong Chelsea team with quite a different approach tonight; deep defending and then giving the ball to Eden Hazard. Wow! Not too bad, to be honest! So it was not the most thankful job I would say, to defend him alone. With the second player, more easy, with the third player you have a good chance. Alvaro Morata running around [too], so that’s quite difficult. We had to work really hard in these situations and stay cool in our situations of playing football and we did it, so I am happy about big parts of the performance.
I’m really proud of the attitude but I have to say that both teams were, attitude-wise, really on a high level and I think in weeks like this it could be different, not for us and not for, unfortunately, Chelsea tonight. So both teams had a big, big investment in this game. So, everything was good until Willian crossed the ball. Most parts of the game are still good, but it doesn’t feel that well, that’s how it is. But the world is a strange and crazy place at the moment, there are so many much more important things that happened, crazy things are happening, so I can easily live with a point against Chelsea.
Today, I didn’t think for a second after the game about Manchester City; what I really thought was that we should have won the game. Then we would have had three points more and we would have been even with Chelsea and that would have been nice. Our position is still OK, but we have to improve, we can do better but the boys did well and after a game like this, a performance like tonight should not be taken for granted because it is so difficult. A lot of things could have happened and boys did really well, so I am happy about that but I am not happy about the result.”
