Liverpool 2, Chelsea 0: Man of the Match

With pivotal victory in a match that was primed for drama, we want you to rate Liverpool’s players and choose your man of the match.

As tends to be the case in these fixtures, the moment of silence in honor of the Hillsborough victims was the calm before the storm. So many questions swirled around this match beforehand - could Liverpool keep pace with Manchester City, could they exorcise the ghosts of that other match against Chelsea, would Chelsea find some other way to spoil the party? - it was almost a relief to get the match underway.

Once the football started however, it was clear that Liverpool meant business. They harried Chelsea relentlessly, and worked the ball around patiently, waiting for their opportunities. The visitors, for their part, stuck to their gameplan, and the threat of a sucker punch was very apparent and very real. There was a very real fear that Liverpool would once again dictate proceedings, only to stumble at a critical moment.

Thankfully, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah took matters into their own hands (or feet). Naby Keïta put in a superbly confident performance. Liverpool emerged from this battle with all three points, another clean sheet, and added resolve as they try to catch Manchester City.

Now let us know how you saw it. With our usual polling tool out of service, we’re instead giving you a choice between a few of the players we thought looked best today for the Reds, so make your choice below and vote for who you think should be the man of the match—or take to the comments to let us know that we got it wrong by leaving the real man of the match off the list entirely.

And as always, anyone visiting on Apple News or Google AMP who wish to vote and can’t see the poll can make it visible by navigating to the front page of The Liverpool Offside and re-entering the story.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com