When the dust settled in west London after another breathless find involving Liverpool in the capital, both Reds and Blues will reflect on two points dropped quite than the matchless they gained. Chelsea are hush second, after a stirring fightback from 2-0 down, but Manchester City were the large winners again at the weekend, opening a 10-point lead over Thomas Tuchel ’ randomness side. The Blues have won lone two league games out of seven since beating Watford a month ago, and have now drawn five of their by six league games at family, dropping 10 points on the way. Liverpool are barely any close to catching Pep Guardiola ’ randomness team. even if they win their game in hand they will be eight points behind City, and are about to lose their two best forwards for up to a month as Sadio Mane and Mohammed Salah head off to the Africa Cup of Nations. Both scored to put Liverpool 2-0 ahead within 26 minutes, though Mane was lucky to distillery be on the lurch after his elbow caught Cesar Azpilicueta in the face in the opening minutes. The Chelsea captain, and plenty of others, thought Anthony Taylor should have shown a red rather than yellow card.

Whatever the merits of that decision, the incidental lit the fuse for a equal that rarely needs much of a sparkle to catch fire. The two sets of fans tend not to like each other, and both sang about Steven Gerrard, with Chelsea fans focussing on the former Liverpool captain ’ south slip that allowed José Mourinho ’ s english to win at Anfield and kill off the Reds ’ title challenge in 2014. The first one-half was breathless, matching the agitation and legal action from Liverpool ’ s last stumble to London, the 2-2 trace at Tottenham a fortnight ago. That began a sequence of dribble points excessively, with the Reds taking only two from a possible nine as their challenge started to fade, besides. While City have won all 17 games in which they have taken the spark advance, Liverpool have won only 12 out of 17 in which they have been ahead — as happened hera again. From looking dead and buried after the opening quarter, Chelsea fought their way back into it and deserved their compass point. N ’ Golo Kante embodied the best of the Blues with another all-action display. even in the eye of the storm, with play going on around him at breakneck speed, he has the ability to find time and space to make a perfectly-weighted pass, to spot where danger is lurking, and make last-minute interceptions. He set up Chelsea ’ s equalizer with a delicate pass to send christian Pulisic in on finish, and moments late was spinal column in his own penalty area to prevent Salah scoring again. Kante is the embodiment of the model professional, rarely if ever letting his team-mates or director down with his actions on or off the pitch. Romelu Lukaku, by contrast, was dropped from the police squad completely in the wake of his controversial consultation on italian television, released last week.

Chelsea were angered by Lukaku ’ s comments that he was not happy at the club, hinting at a return to Inter Milan, and Tuchel felt strongly adequate to leave the golf club ’ second €100m world out of the police squad. The move might have backfired had Chelsea lost or failed to score, but at least Tuchel can say there was no damaging effect to his corrective carry through. then again, a forward with the amphetamine and world power of Lukaku would have given Virgil Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate a more unmanageable clock time than Kai Havertz and Pulisic, who looked lightweight by comparison. It took a bang from the aristocratic to get the Blues back in the game, when Mateo Kovacic scored the goal of a life, volleying past stand-in custodian Caoimhín Kelleher from the edge of the ‘ D ’. The Cork-born keeper replaced Allison, one of three players missing because of Covid, as was Jurgen Klopp. In his rate, Pep Lijnders took over and the Dutchman ’ s demeanor was calm by comparison with Klopp and Tuchel. But he hush managed a touchline spit with the opposing dugout shortly before Chelsea ’ s comeback started.

He refused to concede that City can not be caught, saying : “ The entitle slipstream is not decided until the final day. ” Liverpool ’ s next bet on is the beginning leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Arsenal on Thursday, a day after Chelsea host Tottenham at the lapp stage of the competition. Tuchel was asked if Lukaku will be eligible to play, should there be an amicable solution to ‘ crisis talks ’. “ We will evaluate the site and try to understand what he said and why he said it. When the site is clearly, we will take the decisiveness whether he is good to go for Wednesday, ” he said .