How did Liverpool beat Chelsea and do Jurgen Klopp's team even need a striker? 

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Dejan Lovren celebrates opening the scoring Credit: REX FEATURES

Match Summary

Chelsea 1 - 2 Liverpool

English Premier League16/09/2016 20:00

Referee: Martin Atkinson|Venue: Stamford Bridge|Attendance: 41,514

• Diego Costa61'

• Dejan Lovren17'
• Jordan Henderson36'

How did Liverpool take control of the game?

Chelsea were really, really poor for the first hour, but take nothing away from Jurgen Klopp's men.
 The players in their fluid attack retained possession high up the pitch, pegging Chelsea back inside
 their own half, with Adam Lallana, Philippe Coutinho, Georginio Wijnaldum and Sadio Mane
exchanging positions constantly to create and find space between the lines.

Chelsea struggled to pick up Philippe Coutinho Credit: EPA

Nemanja Matic and N'Golo Kante didn't do enough to protect the Chelsea defence and simply
 couldn't cope with the movement of those in red. Liverpool won it through a set-piece
and a wonder-goal, but some of the football they played was truly outstanding.

Do Liverpool even need a striker?

Jurgen Klopp said this week that it was almost impossible to improve Liverpool's attack
during
the summer transfer window, because there wasn't a "better striker who was available."

Sturridge was ineffective at Stamford Bridge Credit: REUTERS

Daniel Sturridge and Divock Origi are hardly terrible options but showed their own deficiencies
 in this win. Sturridge was peripheral for the 57 minutes he was on the pitch, touching the ball just
 22 times, while Origi missed a huge chance to head in a third Liverpool goal late on when Chelsea
 looked like they might claw their way back into the game.
Klopp's midfield is sensational and here, even without the injured Roberto Firmino, they showed
 they are one of - if not the - best in the Premier League.

How did David Luiz's second Chelsea debut go?

There was an utterly ridiculous furore on Sky Sports pre-game as pundits Graeme Souness
 and Jamie Carragher laid into Luiz for tweeting 30 minutes before kick-off. They claimed it
showed a lack of focus and that the Brazilian should have been taken out of the team as a result,
 failing to recognise that it probably wasn't even Luiz who sent it.

Chelsea started awfully, and it was hard to find a great deal of positivity about any of their players' performances, but Luiz by no means looked distracted. His passing from the back was typically
progressive and he was their biggest threat from attacking set pieces.

Luiz could do with a more senior player alongside him Credit: REUTERS

That said, with him and Gary Cahill at centre-back, Chelsea were clearly missing a leader, with
nobody spotting the queue of Liverpool players at the back post before Dejan Lovren scored
the opener. Once John Terry is fit again, it will almost certainly be him alongside one of Luiz and Cahill.

Man of the match

Jordan Henderson: A performance deserving of the Liverpool armband. Henderson ran himself
 into the ground and scored a goal of which Martin Tyler quite rightly suggested former Liverpool
captain Steven Gerrard would have been proud.

He lost Matic in the build up to Diego Costa's goal, but later made a few decisive interventions,
and in all did a good job breaking up play from the defensive midfield position that he is often
said to be too overzealous to play.

How they reacted

It's really going to be something when we realise in May that Liverpool have failed to win the title because they lost at Burnley.

What next for...

Chelsea: It's got to be time for someone to consider dropping Branislav Ivanovic, doesn't it?
He has been treading water in this Chelsea team for a while and it wasn't at all apparent that
 he was bringing anything to the team here: both with and without the ball he had a poor night.

Is it time for Ivanovic to be dropped? Credit: REUTERS

Chelsea spent £23 million on left-back Marcos Alonso in the summer (yes, I know that is pocket
change for Roman Abramovich) but the fact he can't get a game when Ivanovic is playing so badly
 and they have a ready replacement in Cesar Azpilicueta is really rather puzzling.
Liverpool: Get motivated for the next game. Liverpool have for a decent length of time now
been a team who can get results against the big sides but then slip up when they're expected to win:
see the 4-3 win at Arsenal followed by a 2-0 defeat at Burnley. Next up in the league are Hull and
Swansea, two games Liverpool are equally capable of winning and messing up. Make sure it's
the former.

Match Stats — Team Stats

Chelseav.Liverpool

• Chelsea	Comparison	Liverpool
  1	33.3% 66.7%	2

  Total Shots (including blocked shots)

  Chelsea	Comparison	Liverpool
  12	48% 52%	13

  Shots On Target

  Chelsea	Comparison	Liverpool
  4	44.4% 55.6%	5

  Blocked Shots

  Chelsea	Comparison	Liverpool
  5	45.5% 54.5%	6

  Shots from outside the box

  Chelsea	Comparison	Liverpool
  3	33.3% 66.7%	6

  Shots from inside the box

  Chelsea	Comparison	Liverpool
  9	56.3% 43.8%	7

  Shot Accuracy (excluding blocked shots)

  Chelsea	Comparison	Liverpool
  57.1%	57.1% 71.4%	71.4%

Action areas

27.9%47.7%24.4%52.7%47.3%

Line-ups

Chelsea

• 13Thibaut Courtois
• 24Gary Cahill
• 2Branislav Ivanovic
• 30David Luiz
• 28César Azpilicueta
• 7N'Golo Kanté
• 10Eden Hazard
• 22Willian
• 8Oscar
• 21Nemanja Matic
• 19Diego Costa

Substitutes

• 4Cesc Fàbregas
• 15Victor Moses
• 11Pedro

Liverpool

• 22Simon Mignolet
• 7James Milner
• 6Dejan Lovren
• 2Nathaniel Clyne
• 32Joel Matip
• 20Adam Lallana
• 5Georginio Wijnaldum
• 14Jordan Henderson
• 15Daniel Sturridge
• 10Philippe Coutinho
• 19Sadio Mané

Substitutes

• 21Lucas Leiva
• 35Kevin Stewart
• 27Divock Origi

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