Everybody stay calm! Naples is an extremely difficult place to go and to get a result. Last season we looked like children when we played there and then went on to win the Champions League. There is nothing to be concerned about. Okay, now that that’s cleared up, let’s talk about Chelsea away this weekend on Sunday.
After Chelsea’s thrashing of Wolverhampton Wanderers last weekend you would think they were top of the league, not us. Tammy Abraham was on fire as he scored his first Premier League hat-trick and, to be fair, more than likely not his last. The entire team played like a unit in a game that sent a message to the rest of the top 6 teams. Beside the adversity, Chelsea are here to play.
A mid-week slump at home to Valencia in the Champions League where they lost 0-1 displayed the other side of the Chelsea squad. Young and inexperienced. An injury to the bright star Mason Mount also didn’t help either. The current problem that this Chelsea squad is facing is the search for consistency. Games like that of last week’s against Wolves proves they can ball, but a loss to Valencia at home isn’t good enough for Chelsea.
This Sunday is a different story. Chelsea will be ready. If the match in the Super Cup is anything to go by then they will be more than ready. They pushed us to our absolute limit in that game which took heroics from Adrian to win. They’re more than capable of causing us problems.
On the other hand, Liverpool this season in the Premier League have proven to ALWAYS be ready. For the first time in a very long time I wasn’t worried when we conceded early against Newcastle. I knew we would score. It was just a matter of when. You can’t put a price on that feeling and for that we have Jurgen Klopp to thank. He made good on his promise when he signed for us and told everyone he would turn us from doubters to believers. We are all believers now.
Based on Tuesday’s game in Naples I can’t really say we are out of form even though we lost 2-0. We played a great game and definitely had our chances to draw or even win the match but we were just unlucky not to put them away. Salah should have scored when Manolas miskicked his clearance and either him or Mane should have scored when they countered in a two on one situation in the second half. These are just examples of the clear cut opportunities we had to be in the game.
Each of our players had a decent enough game, with Fabinho having arguably one of his best games in a Liverpool kit. Andy Robertson was hard done by with a penalty call that should have been disallowed via VAR and Virgil Van Dijk made his first mistake in over a year. All credit must also go to Napoli who were brilliant on the night with Koulibaly leading the praise.
There’s never a good enough excuse for a loss but positives need to be taken from Tuesday and channelled into this match against Chelsea. We are champions of Europe. We are top of the Premier League. We currently have one of the best squads in Europe and a world class player for every position.
We go again at Chelsea!
Come on you Reds!
YNWA
Thomas Schembri
