What’s wrong with Bradley? He’s giving Klopp a headache. How can Chelsea get better for the Carabao Cup final?
Liverpool kept their five-point edge at the top of the Premier League with a convincing 4-1 win over Chelsea on Wednesday night.
When Dominik Szoboszlai scored the third strike in the 65th minute, it looked like Liverpool had won for sure.
Diogo Jota scored the first goal for Liverpool in the 23rd minute, getting past the Chelsea defense.
Then Conor Bradley ran down the right side of the field and finished over Djordje Petrovic for his first goal as a big player for Liverpool.
Christopher Nkunku scored in the 71st minute, giving the home team a short-lived scare. But Luis Diaz quickly put the game out of reach for Jurgen Klopp’s team.
Liverpool beat Norwich City and moved on to the fifth round of the FA Cup. They played fantastically and deserve all five stars.
Different players scored five goals in the 5-2 win. Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez, Diogo Jota, Virgil van Dijk, and Ryan Gravenberch all scored.
Conor Bradley proved the best of the bunch because he set up two goals and helped young James McConnell set up the first one.
On Wednesday, Liverpool and Chelsea play a practice game for next month’s Carabao Cup finale in the Premier League.
The matchup is the opposite of the first game they played, where Axel Disasi canceled out Luis Diaz’s opener to earn a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge.
Trent Alexander-Arnold came on as a substitute but didn’t play in Sunday’s win. However, being there was good for his recovery from a knee injury.
The Liverpool vice-captain was a worry when he was ruled toward the Carabao Cup the semifinals against Fulham and the win over Bournemouth, but now that he’s back, Jurgen Klopp has to decide how to defend him.
Since taking over for the England player, Bradley hasn’t done a bad thing. The player of the match on Sunday could keep his spot at right back after starting all four games in a row, but Chelsea are going to be a test of Klopp’s faith.
The same goes for the left back. Joe Gomez has been perfect since stepping in for Andy Robertson and Kostas Tsimikas when they were not available.
Henderson finally got back to playing football on Sunday, after being out since October with a shoulder injury.
Klopp is having a good time with him coming back on time, but Gomez’s form and the fact that the Scot might be rusty from playing make a case to allow the England defender to keep his spot.
Both Manchester City and Arsenal beat Nottingham Forest on Tuesday, so it was important for Liverpool to win the first game of their big doubleheader.
The next game is at the Emirates this weekend, and Jurgen Klopp’s team did not expect to have such an easy time.
Within 65 minutes, goals from Diogo Jota, Bradley (his first for the club), and Dominik Szoboszlai put an already bad Chelsea team out of the game.
Things could have been worse for Chelsea, though, as Darwin Nunez hit the post an amazing four times, including one from the penalty spot.
Luckily for Liverpool, they didn’t need him because they already had a star player in Bradley, who came up in place of Trent Alexander-Arnold, who was on the sidelines as he continued to recover from injury. This was only Bradley’s second league start.
Bradley was named player of the match against Norwich on Sunday. In his last four games, he has been actively involved in six goals, so when Alexander-Arnold took over, he was greeted with a standing ovation.
While Bradley had a great game, Nunez didn’t have any luck. Goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic stopped three of his shots, sending two over the crossbar and one off the post within the first half.
The Liverpool striker had such bad luck that when he did miss Petrovic from the penalty spot after stealing the ball from Alexis Mac Allister, the same post stopped him again.
Nunez’s style of controlled pandemonium keeps him involved, but it doesn’t always work out. Klopp, on the other hand, has Jota, who is nearly the exact opposite.