By Darlington Mutsvairi
A second half brace from Senegalese international, Sadio Mane was enough to hand Liverpool maximum points following a 0-2 win against 10 man Chelsea in a Premier League encounter at Stamford Bridge this afternoon that saw Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen being sent off while goal minder, Kepa Arrizabalaga’s blunder led to the second goal.
Sadio was the match-winner for Liverpool, banging his first league goals at Stamford Bridge as Liverpool took advantage of Chelsea defender Christensen’s dismissal, cruising to victory while affording a second-half debut to their new signing, Thiago Alcantara.
Jorginho failed to convert the spot kick which could have consoled the frustrated Blues.
Chelsea’s porous defence is not at all the intended reflection of Frank Lampard’s £200million spending spree on the summer transfer market.
Kepa fetched a world-record, £72million fee for a goalkeeper in 2018 but has failed to lived up to that price-tag and his latest error has the potential of making him lose his position in the Chelsea starting eleven as Rennes goalkeeper, Edouard Mendy is expected to complete his move to Stamford Bridge shortly.
The goal stopper dilly-dallied with the ball under pressure from Mane and paid the ultimate price in the 54th minute as the Liverpool forward blocked his clearance and tapped the ball into an empty net with ease.
Mane’s opener had arrived just four minutes earlier, as the 28-year-old headed home Roberto Firmino’s fine cross.
Christensen’s fully deserved red card changed the complexion of the game but Chelsea had kept shape and threatened several times for the bulk of the first half.
Besides the defeat at home, Lampard felt the performance was actually better than that during their 3-1 win over Brighton in their opening match last weekend.
“There were a lot of things I was happy about with our defensive game, I think Liverpool give you a lot of threats. I wanted us to be better on the ball.
“We showed moments on the counter-attack when we were dangerous in the first half. Timo had a couple of good, good opportunities, but to limit them to the chances that they had in the first half, there were lots of things I was pleased about.
“My team talk was ‘Be more confident on the ball lads.’ We had little moments where we were confident, took it and received it in midfield and got our full-backs in the game,” he said.
Lampard accepted the fact that Liverpool is a better side than Chelsea as he is still in the process of assembling a better side when asked if there was an element in the result that Liverpool are more finely tuned than his side.
“Of course there is and normally with new faces you get a month or so of pre-season to work on your patterns of play, how you want to play.”
