Steven Petrov
The Paw Print
The team from London beat their main rival for the EPL title this season, Liverpool FC, in a game of round 36 in the English Premiere League played on Liverpool’s fortress “Anfield” stadium on Sunday, April 27th. Chelsea FC broke the 11 consecutive games winning streak that the team from “Merseyside” had and became the first team to beat them in 2014. This game was of significant importance for determining the future champion of England. Before the game, Liverpool FC was comfortably sitting on the 1st place in the league standings, 5 points ahead of Chelsea FC. The “reds” needed a win to completely secure their championship, or at least a tie to keep the 5 points difference between them and the second one in the table. The team from Liverpool has never been closer to win the EPL title in the last 24 years, and it now has the chance to break that almost quarter of a century “curse” that weighs upon the club. This loss created another major problem for “the reds” because it put Manchester City FC back in the fight for the title. The “citizens” were 6 points behind Liverpool FC before Sunday’s game, but were also with 2 less games than “the reds” with 6 goals lead in the goal differential standing. This means that after Manchester City’s win this Sunday against Cristal Palace, they are now only 3 points behind the leader Liverpool FC and only 1 point behind Chelsea FC but have also played 1 less game than the last two mentioned teams.
The game between Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC on Sunday was interesting in many different ways. Chelsea’s manager, Jose Mourinho, officially stated before the game that he will give a chance to some of the younger players in the team that usually don’t see many minutes. His main argument was that he has an incredibly important game coming up on Wednesday, in the Champions league against the Spanish sensation this year, Athletico Madrid, and he wanted to “rest” his best players for this match. The 20 year old, Tomas Kalas, started as a center defender for the “blues.” The 2nd string goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer, also started the game due to the injury that Peter Czech suffered in the last week’s clash against Athletico Madrid in the Champions league. Mohamed Salah and Nemanja Matic, who can’t compete in the Champions league, were also given a chance to show their skills in this really important game. Demba Ba and André Schürrle lead Chelsea’s attack in this game.
With the way the last couple rounds in the EPL have ended, the 2013-2014 champion will be unknown until the last round of the campaign in two weeks.
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