Liverpool vs. Chelsea score: Points shared in feisty Anfield draw as Reece James given controversial red card

A 1-1 draw saw both sides lose their 100 percent starts to the Premier League season

Liverpool and Chelsea were forced to settle for a share of the points at Anfield in a 1-1 draw where Reece James saw red in contentious fashion.

European champions Chelsea looked to be bossing proceedings at Anfield after a superb Kai Havertz header from a James corner in the 22nd minute and in an evenly numbered contest Thomas Tuchel may have felt his team could have gone on to earn an imposing victory over the 2019-20 champions.

However James' red card on the stroke of half time handed Liverpool not only a chance to equalize that Mohamed Salah never looked like missing but a man advantage that allowed them to dominate possession in the second period. Despite that Chelsea never really looked like conceding in an outstanding defensive performance that saw them depart from Merseyside by far the happier of the two teams.

A Premier League classic of a first half

What more could you want from that first half? Mad intensity, a spectacular atmosphere, tactical intrigue and variety and a big old dollop of madness and fury just before the break. Even the enmity that bubbled to the surface between Chelsea and Liverpool brought you back to the glory days of Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benitez. This was pure, undiluted Premier League and all the better for it.

At the outset Liverpool seemed to be playing with cavalier abandon across the side, central midfielders who would usually focus on shuttling and stodging up the center of the pitch were bombing forward with Harvey Elliott and Jordan Henderson getting good shooting chances in the first 10 minutes. 

Very early on the game seemed to be swinging towards Jurgen Klopp's side. Trent Alexander-Arnold was playmaking from the edge of his own half whilst a four man frontline with Elliott or Henderson pushed high up seemed to have rocked the hosts.

But Chelsea's sheer muscularity paid dividends. Romelu Lukaku was the ideal out ball, not just winning long balls but spinning his side forward. This game had been billed as the battle between the Belgian and Virgil van Dijk. Lukaku just went at Joel Matip instead. In midfield Jorginho and N'Golo Kante were on every loose ball before Liverpool had even picked it out.

Havertz typified Chelsea's blend of grace and power with the wonderful opener. He was tall enough to impose himself on Andrew Robertson at the near post and was blessed with the panache to flick it high over Alisson and into the back post.

For a time it seemed that this would be Chelsea's statement win, the day when Thomas Tuchel had to accept that his side could not be part of the chasing pack anymore. But in true English fashion a great big row over handball and VAR swung the game.

Sadio Mane flicked a corner across goal from the near post, the pressure of Matip pressuring Marcos Alonso into a nervy header with Edouard Mendy waiting to clear the ball. Cannoning off the crossbar, the ball eventually came to Diogo Jota, who twice saw volleys blocked on the line by James. On the first such occasion the ball hit the defender's leg first but clipped up onto his arm. A brief VAR intervention was all that was required.

It might feel unfair but the laws of the game seem to have been correctly applied by Anthony Taylor. Law 12 clearly states: "Where a player denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity by a handball offence the player is sent off wherever the offence occurs." If the referee thought that was a handball offence -- and an earlier part of that law to do with what constitutes handball is very much open to interpretation -- then a penalty and red card was the correct outcome.

That is also the opinion of pro referee Christina Unkel. Looking at the play she said, "Reece makes his body unnaturally bigger preventing the ball going into the back of the net. The deflection off his body does not preclude the handling offense from being sanctioned and the impact is so big as it prevents a goal.  Though referees are given more latitude to be subjective with the latest law and the ability to judge justifiable location of the arm due to the player's body movement, it's incredibly difficult to justify it here on the goal line. Double jeopardy (red card and missing next match) was removed for actions that deny obvious goal scoring opportunity if there is an attempt to play the ball. Denial of a goal scoring opportunity handling offenses have always and will be red because one can never play the ball with their hand in a fair matter."

What else was James supposed to do? Had Alonso not headed the ball out of Edouard Mendy's hands Chelsea would surely have returned to the Anfield dressing room a goal to the good. It did not seem that he was trying to handle the ball (IFAB has removed any suggestion of intent from its laws) but he had denied Liverpool a goal that might have come if his hand was not there.

Chelsea hold firm

A man down behind enemy lines, Tuchel's men did what most would in their circumstances. They looked at what they had and thought "yeah, we'll take that point at Anfield for now". Who knew, maybe a late set piece would offer them the chance for a bit more.

As such we saw something of a return to the Chelsea of early in Tuchel's reign, when they first established their habit for setting up a ring of steel around their penalty area. Do what you want to them outside the box but don't expect an easy passage into it. In the first half hour of the second half Liverpool completed just one pass within the penalty box and though they had a lot of touches they were for the most part in the sort of wide areas from which they could not really test Mendy.

Liverpool's touches in the second half of their 1-1 draw with Chelsea TruMedia

Long range thumpers from Robertson and Fabinho might draw gasps from the crowd and you never know when a deflection might fly your way but Chelsea were setting up this game so that it was players like those two, not Salah, Mane and Jota, who would beat them. In such circumstances that is not a bad tactic at all.

Even the introduction of Thiago didn't bring enough to break Chelsea down. The passes fizzed that much quicker off the boots but they were still waves lapping against the rocks. Liverpool needed an awful lot longer than 45 minutes to really wear down this outstanding defense.

[Aug 28, 2021 at 2:12 pm ET · James Benge]

Seriously, what outstanding defensive work this has been from Chelsea, who have built a barricade on the edge of their box and, bar a couple of low xG shots around the hour mark, kept Liverpool to the edges of the area.

TruMedia

[Aug 28, 2021 at 1:53 pm ET · James Benge]

It's all Liverpool in the first 15 minutes of the second half but Mendy is performing excellently in saving everything that comes his way. It perhaps helps that the defense are keeping that high volume of shots outside the box. There has not yet been a clear effort for the Reds frontline to sink their teeth into. You feel it might come soon.