Chelsea afraid of Liverpool: Benitez

RAFAEL BENITEZ has turned up the heat on Chelsea by claiming the English champions might be afraid of his Liverpool outfit.

And as the Anfield club reflect on being the first side this season to stop Jose Mourinho’s side winning, defender Jamie Carragher also stuck the knife in by branding Chelsea a “long ball” team.

The champions of Europe stopped Chelsea in their tracks on Wednesday by enjoying the best of their Champions League Group G showdown, which ended in a 0-0 draw although Liverpool insist they were denied three penalties by Italian ref Massimo De Santis.

It ended Chelsea’s run of nine straight victories in all competitions from the start of the season and teed up Sunday’s Premiership clash between the clubs at Anfield. And Benitez claimed Chelsea do too much talking, a sign they are worried about the Merseysiders.

“I am sure Chelsea do not like playing Liverpool. When they are talking and talking and talking before the game it means they are worried, maybe they are afraid, I don’t know. But I hope that is the case after this weekend,” he said.

Liverpool go into Sunday’s match 14 points adrift of leaders Chelsea, with Mourinho claiming they will be “finished” in the title race if the Londoners win at Anfield. But Benitez responded by saying: “We played better than them on Wednesday, they are at the top of the league with a squad maybe as good as anyone in the world and we played at the same level as them.

“We had control in midfield, defence and attack. As a manager that makes me happy. I do not want to keep talking about the penalties we were denied, but if you watch TV you could see there was no doubt, two, maybe three.”

It was Carragher who suffered the worst decision to deny Liverpool a spot-kick when his second-half header was handled by William Gallas. But the defender was more concerned with rubbishing Chelsea claims Liverpool are just a long ball team.

“There is no side more direct than Chelsea. We watched videos of Chelsea before the game and when we saw their match against Bayern Munich from last season’s Champions League,” he said.

“I couldn’t remember seeing so many long balls in a match since I started watching football in the 80s. No-one can accuse us of playing too direct on Wednesday. Our midfield got the better of them. When you look at the quality they’ve got in Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Claude Makelele, I thought Stevie Gerrard, Dietmar Hamann and Xabi Alonso had the upper hand.

“I know it’s an easy accusation to make against a side with a 6ft 7 centre forward but we showed a lot of good quality all over the pitch. We now have another option in Peter Crouch but I won’t have it that we played it all long to him. We didn’t. He has shown what quality he’s got on the deck, anyway.”