CL: Chelsea 0 Liverpool 0

Good result for us to bring the tie back to Anfield. But the 2nd leg will be a more ardous task with Alonso out. Rafa's tactics frustrated the HELL out of Chelsea as they came in search for the first goal. Mourinho did well to exploit Liverpool's achilles heel down the left side. He fielded the lightning speed Joe Cole to attack down the left flank. This has caused confusions at the backline for us but thank god the defence stood firm. Hyypia's experience is enough to keep Cole at length. Rafa saw the loophole quick enuf and did well to rectify the situation.

We had very little to offer up front with Baros being the lone striker up there. Apparantly Rafa's idea to rest Garcia and Alonso in the Palace match backfired. Both the Spainards were poor. Garcia was MIA most of the time tonight, 90% of his passes went astray and he keeps falling over at the slightest nugdge by the opponent. Alonso was equally bad. His passes were well read by the opponent and they kept intercepting his crosses to Riise. And his needless challenge in the dying mins saw him receive a yellow card which means he'll miss the return leg.

Biscan did quite a good job keeping Frank Lampard quiet tonight. But i guess we still miss Hamann in midfield. Gerrard was average. Not up to standard. Rafa brought on Kewell with about 10 mins left but i rather see Warnock or even Nunez on the pitch.

Djibril Cisse came on for Baros and he did somehow manage to turn the game a little. With Chelsea attacking in waves especially with Arjen Robben on, Cisse did break the flow of the game by initiating a few breaks and causing trouble for Carvalho. But my MOTM goes to Carra. He was everywhere on the field. And just when Chelsea look highly likely to score, Carra came out from nowhere to stop the ball from getting into the net. He was responsible for frustrating the whole Chelsea team EVEN John Terry. Once again, a GOOD but not great result for us. I feel that we were abit defensive today. With Damien Duff out of action, we should take this opportunity and really bring the game to Chelsea and at least try to get that crucial away goal. But oh well... 0 - 0 is good enough for me.