However, should Frank Lampard want a regular international role as a goalscoring midfielder, he would have to finish better than the tame header which greeted Jesper Gronkjaer’s cross. He took him off.Since there were only two English-born players in Ranieri’s starting line-up, the announcement of Sven Goran Eriksson’s squad to begin the European Championship campaign would hardly have been a burning issue on the Chelsea bus. With 20 minutes remaining the Liverpool manager did something the Real coach Vicente del Bosque would never do to Zidane. Yesterday, in the wake of an inept display in Stavanger, they were muscular, determined and generally succeeded in smothering Houllier’s reformed midfield which had Bruno Cheyrou playing behind Owen and Heskey.Houllier sees signs of Zinedine Zidane in Cheyrou’s play, although yesterday, the only real resemblance was facial – there was a little turn and shot early in the second half but it was well blocked by his brother-in-law, Emmanuel Petit.

Last year’s failure in Tel Aviv sparked a recovery, the centrepiece of which was a 3-0 defeat of Manchester United. They had a lot of the ball but it was in the middle and in their own third.”Chelsea’s usual trick is to be humiliated in the darker corners of European football and then respond with a display of force and purpose in one of the Premiership’s great arenas. “But there was desire among the players especially not to lose a goal If you analyse what chances Chelsea created, it was minimal. Houllier, approaching the first anniversary of his almost fatal collapse at Anfield, and planning to “celebrate it” with a week off, would appreciate that statistic.Phil Thompson was alongside Dalglish in the dug-out in that fateful season of 1990-91, which finished with Arsenal cantering to the title, and Liverpool’s assistant manager admitted that his side “did not have their usual potency”, but went on to ask questions of how effective Chelsea actually were.”It was an interesting game and it was not our most fluid display,” he said. It was plastic and not the real Liverpool.However, after what could be counted Liverpool’s first victory of the season over one of the Premiership’s main players, it meant they had made their best start since Kenny Dalglish’s final campaign. As the crowds drifted off, the Tannoys played Gareth Gates and Will Young crooning the Beatles’ “Long And Winding Road” and the home team’s display echoed this.

Otherwise, he had contributed a cross which Carlo Cudicini made a hash of but which Milan Baros was unable to convert.Liverpool deserved their victory which kept them in touching distance of Arsenal by virtue of a dramatically improved second-half performance which had seen Steven Gerrard hit the crossbar and Baros, who troubled Marcel Desailly with his pace, squander one achingly obvious chance.But, hampered by the loss of Stephane Henchoz to a calf injury that will keep him out for six weeks, this was not the fluid, attacking Liverpool G?rd Houllier has promised and frequently delivered this season. The former, put through by a marvellous pass from Salif Diao, drove his shot against the post and the ball rolled out gently and invitingly back to Michael Owen, who from no more than a yard out clipped it into an utterly unguarded net with 46 seconds of the match remaining.Significantly, it was his only shot of an afternoon which confirmed Chelsea’s third successive defeat, something which they had never previously experienced under Claudio Ranieri. Yesterday, Sunderland, who last season had been two down inside four minutes, had capitulated after 10 at Highbury, while at Anfield, men in blue shirts again sank to the grass weighed down with despair after once more losing to Liverpool with a goal in the last minute.
Last season, Chelsea were undone by Vladimir Smicer; now it was a combination of Emile Heskey and Michael Owen. For some fixtures the pattern remains the same, only the years change.