Chelsea vs Liverpool: The One Where Nil-Nils Are Fun

How Diego Costa celebrates a goal

Familiarity breeds contempt. A sentiment that never seems to ring truer than when Liverpool face Chelsea again and again and again. With the first leg remaining fairly tempered it was bound to bubble over last night — and definitely did. A lot.

After a fairly turgid display from both sides in the bigger and better cup FA Cup this weekend, it was good to see there was some fighting spirit in the players. Quite literally. But it wasn’t all Diego Costa’s crimes* against nature and the never-ending farewell tour of Saint Steven. Some actual football snuck in here and there.

Most surprisingly was the performance of, unrecognised by his own manager, Simon Mignolet. Some people *cough* presumed if you shot anywhere in and around his area that the goals would come flooding in. They. Did. Not. Mignolet produced some fine saves in the absence of injured Brad Jones and could just see out the season in his smashing purple garb.

Everton vs Chelsea: Not a Masterclass in Defence - But Loads of Fun

Update: They kissed & made up

Well, that was a bit of fun, wasn’t it?! I feel pretty confident in saying that NO ONE saw that coming. Goodison Park normally a difficult ground for anyone to go to - Chelsea scoring just 2 goals in their last 3 trips there combined. The only two guarantees were Steven Naismith was going to score — again. And Eto’o was going to score no matter how little time he got against Chelsea.

Like Didier Drogba on the opening day, Diego Costa rose from the dead to feature in the starting lineup. With Torres off to sample some ossobuco and no one in to take his place, it appeared Mourinho didn’t have much choice but to start Costa - injured or not. It took just 36 seconds for any concerns about the ‘injury’ to evaporate. And another 2 minutes for the game to appear fully in Chelsea’s control. 

But after Arsenal battled back against them a week ago, Everton were not prepared to just sit back and let Chelsea park any sort of multi-passenger vehicle. They were also fully prepared to take full advantage of the stellar job that Moss and his assistants did yesterday awarding offside goals and letting Tim Howard’s beard catch a ball just about anywhere he wants.

And all of that in just 45 minutes! There was fear that the second half couldn’t live up to the thrilling first half. Surely Mourinho would just shut up shop and head back to London with three points in hand. Boring, boring Chelsea and all that.