Don’t you just love Bank Holiday Mondays, especially when the weather is great and, the day before, you’ve just seen your side beat, Liverpool?
Okay, it wasn’t the best of performances, but the side battled hard to take the three points on offer and kept us in contention for a place in the Champions League next season.
The atmosphere was, as it always tends to be when Liverpool come to Stamford Bridge, great and even Antonio Conte seemed his old animated self as he prowled around in his technical area, even getting a telling off from the referee, Anthony Taylor, at one stage as he exceeded its boundaries.
Following the victory, Antonio spoke to the media and summed things up perfectly when he remarked,
“Today was a must-win game against a really good team, but it was a good game and a great show of will to keep our hope of finishing in the top four alive. I’m very happy for the players and the fans. They deserve this type of game and this win.”
Hopefully, Chelsea will get the benefit of a slip-up by either Tottenham Hotspur or Liverpool, in the last week of the season, otherwise, I’m afraid the Europa League beckons.
Following the game, we took the opportunity to delve into the record and form books to bring you a few facts and figures that might interest you.
• In keeping a clean-sheet, Chelsea ensured that was the first time Liverpool have failed to score in consecutive games, in the Premier League, under the managerial acumen of Jurgen Klopp.
• Antonio Conte became the fifth manager to have faced in excess of 20 Premier League teams and beaten them all, following in the footsteps of Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger Jose Mourinho and, believe it or not, Gordon Strachan.
• The winning goal, scored by Olivier Giroud, was the first time he’d scored in a fixture he’d started since May 2017, the Frenchman’s other 6 goals have all come after Olivier came off the bench as a substitute.
• Since the clocks heralded the new Millennium, Chelsea and Liverpool have, in all competitions, played each other 56 times making it the most played fixture.
Chelsea are next back in action, on Wednesday evening, when they take on Huddersfield Town, at Stamford Bridge, the last home game of the season and their penultimate Premier League fixture of the season.