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Good goals, and well worth watching again. Having already started their competitive play in Europe, Liverpool seemed a step ahead of Chelesea. For the champions, they had best get their game faces on before next weekend. Too many give-aways in midfield and too much space given in defense (including Crouch's goal).

From a fantasy perspective, Shevchenko looked dangerous, though he drifted out of the game. Several shots on target and the goal to his credit. It was a top-class goal, and of course it was set up by a delicious pass from Lampard. Cudicini made some good saves, in net for now as Cech recovers from surgery. He should have been better positioned for the first goal, but couldn't have done anything about the second. Robben looks to have stalled as a player, running into the same double-teams and dead-ends that he did in the World Cup for Holland.

Ballack's injury will affect many fantasy teams. Will he make the opener? And if he is healthy, is he ready to cotribute in the Premiership?

For Liverpool, Pennant, Garcia, and even Zenden looked dangerous at times. Aurelio came in at left midfield, though that position seems to be Gonzalez's to lose. However he looked good, forcing two saves out of Cudicini. One from a free kick and the other from almost the penalty spot as the ball squirmed across the defense.

And though neither player will feature in fantasy manager's plans, credit to both Essien and Sissoko who were their respective team's best players on the day.

4 comments:

  1. Bridge only came on as sub but will he start the opener? Any ideas?

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  2. Anonymous7:07 AM

    Nice post, Jeremy!

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  3. "If you don't buy a ticket, you can't win the lottery."

    Good advice for us all.

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  4. I actually thought Cech would have stopped both Liverpool goals - Cudicini was criminally negligent on the first one and Cech is just good enough that he would have gotten SOME body part on the ball that handcuffed Cudicini.

    The most worrying thing for me is that I'm still not sure how Ballack and Lampard fit together any better than Lampard and Gerrard did for England. They looked mediocre-at-best together until Ballack left.

    Chelsea will suffer with no width - I went from thinking this season is going to be another Chelsea run-away to thinking Pool might be able to make a race of it (although they'll still finish second).

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