Gallas and Crespo do damage for Chelsea

Chelsea 2 Liverpool 0

Liverpool did their very best to upset Jose Mourinho's champion side and still lost, courtesy of goals from William Gallas and Hernan Crespo. A second consecutive Chelsea title, always a probability, is now an inevitability.

Merseyside frustrations ran deep, and they boiled over towards the end of a fractious game when their goalkeeper Jose Reina was sent off for slapping Chelsea's Arjen Robben. The Dutchman's reaction was absurdly theatrical, but once he had raised his hands, referee Alan Wiley was left with little choice but to flash a red card.

There was an added frisson of delight to Chelsea's celebrations at the final whistle, for Mourinho's players reserve a particular penchant for derailing Liverpool. A controversial Champions League exit at Anfield last season still stings their pride and their desire to atone for that disappointment has only escalated in the wake of some spiteful comments from Merseyside denigrating their style.

However, anger is not always conducive to producing polished football and, in the first half at least, Chelsea's fury clouded their focus. Passes were misplaced and tackles botched.

Liverpool should have taken advantage of Chelsea's sloppiness but they were never able to carve out anything better than half-chances. Sami Hyypia and Jamie Carragher should both have tested Cech with headers, but their radar was malfunctioning.

The best chance of all fell to Peter Crouch when he ballooned a header over from Jean-Arne Riise's delicate chipped cross.

Chelsea took the lead 10 minutes before half-time. It could hardly be described as a thing of beauty Frank Lampard's swirling corner was headed down by Riccardo Carvalho for Gallas to spin and shoot in from close range but the reaction was raucous.

Just before half-time, Crespo had a goal correctly disallowed for offside. But if the first half had been cagey, the second was cacophonous. Gerrard twice went close but crucially Chelsea's goal remained unbreached.

Liverpool were so committed to attack that they temporarily forgot about defence and, moments after Robben had sounded an alarm by cracking an effort past the post, Crespo's timing finally clicked. The Argentine collected Del Horno's lobbed pass, streaked forward and crashed in.

Having lost the game, Liverpool lost their heads and the game ended in the unseemly squabble which will rule out Reina for the next three games.

Opta Fact: Chelsea are unbeaten in their last 38 Premiership home games, but it was their first clean sheet in five league games.

CHELSEA: Cech, Gallas, Ricardo Carvalho, Terry, Del Horno, Makelele (Diarra 84), Essien, Lampard, Joe Cole (Duff 74), Robben, Crespo, Duff (Gudjohnsen 79).

LIVERPOOL: Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Warnock, Alonso, Sissoko (Cisse 74), Riise (Luis Garcia 61), Kewell, Gerrard, Crouch, Luis Garcia (Dudek 83).

Referee: A Wiley (Staffordshire).