Ancelotti’s fate relies on Torres hitting form
AS his former team-mates ran in great circles of joy to celebrate their goal and John Terry led the inquest into a Chelsea defensive disaster, Fernando Torres stared down from the stand, lips pursed in silent disgust, like a man who had cunningly changed queues in the supermarket only to watch the person ahead announce that they are not moving until they get to speak to the manager.
“Should have stayed with a big club” the Liverpool fans sang. Their Torres banners ranged from one in the style of the Sky Sports News ticker: “breaking news: ya paid £50 mill for margi clarke” to the rather more pompous “he who betrays will always walk alone”.
There was much laughter that the Chelsea fans, in copying Torres’ old Anfield banner and changing it from red to blue, had reproduced details of the Shankly Gates, which meant about as much to them as the Margi Clarke reference did to Torres.
After a memorable and unexpected Liverpool victory, it’s difficult to imagine Liverpool’s owners not making Kenny Dalglish the manager on a permanent basis.
Whether or not his spell out of the game has somehow dulled his footballing insight, it’s plain that when it comes to representing the club, Dalglish is the best Liverpool manager since... Kenny Dalglish.
He had defused journalists’ pre-match questions about why Torres left by saying that he didn’t know what Torres had said since he joined Chelsea, “but I know what he said when he was here.”
Now he denied that the presence of Torres among the opposition had been an extra motivation for his players. “Our incentive was three points. Whatever someone else wants to do with their life, it’s entirely their own choice.”
Liverpool supporters will also like the fact that Dalglish refused to take personal credit. Asked about Liverpool’s “unconventional” system, he replied: “What was unconventional about it?” Well, you had three at the back. “But that’s the way we wanted to play.”
Dalglish said the system was chosen simply because he thought it would get the most out of the players available.
“I’m not trying to be a tactical genius. I’ll play any system that suits our players and is suited to the opposition. The players gave us everything. They have no goals against in four games, that’s not down to any system, that’s down to them. The people should get the credit.”
That flexibility stands in stark contrast with Roy Hodgson’s slavish adherence to the methods that had famously translated from Halmstads to Malmo to Orebro and so on. Likewise, Rafa Benitez always put the system ahead of individuals, often demoralising players with inhuman flourishes like the time he tried to stop Xabi Alonso attending the birth of his first child.
Dalglish doesn’t talk about the tactical system but about the players as a collective, and so far his focus on the human aspect seems to be having the desired effect.
The biggest decision Dalglish made was to include Jamie Carragher, who was making his first start since dislocating his shoulder at Tottenham two months ago. Carragher repaid his faith with a concentrated, disciplined performance enlivened by much gesticulating at his team-mates.
Liverpool’s extra man at the back helped to ensure Carragher was never isolated or caught on the turn by Chelsea’s front men. The only time Torres escaped his marker and bore down on Liverpool’s goal, it was Carragher who hurled himself across to block the shot.
Carlo Ancelotti, who felt Chelsea were denied at least one penalty, argued with the fourth official in the final minutes of the game but had assumed a fatalistic calm by the time he faced the media. “The problem was not the shape. We bought fantastic players, for this reason we are very happy. Liverpool played with fantastic power, fantastic attitude.”
The shape was a problem though. There was no pace or inventiveness to Chelsea’s play, nothing clever or unexpected to pull Liverpool’s phalanx of defenders out of shape. Nicolas Anelka played behind the front two but while he sauntered about elegantly, he could not supply Torres or Didier Drogba with the early passes that might have caught Carragher on the hop.
The unease in the Chelsea camp was embodied in two misunderstandings between Ivanovic and Cech. In the first half, they clumsily challenged each other for the same ball and the subsequent flare-up had to be separated by a team-mate. In the second half, they seemed to leave Steven Gerrard’s cross to each other and Raul Meireles capitalised to score the fatal goal.
Chelsea are now battling Spurs for fourth place but Champions League qualification alone will not save Ancelotti. His continued employment also depends on Torres’ success.
The team will have to be re-jigged to suit the new striker, and in the short term the most likely casualty is Anelka. Another challenge is to maintain team spirit even though the players now know they are working in a caste system: Torres at the top along with Terry and Lampard, the others distributed across various sub-levels.
Meanwhile, a Liverpool team Roy Hodgson had persuaded us was hopeless is only six points off fourth place. If they were to beat Chelsea to that spot and Fernando Torres was forced once again into the Europa League he hates so much, it wouldn’t be just Liverpool supporters laughing.
