Liverpool 1 Chelsea 3 in Quarter Finals CL

Chelsea clawed back from an early Fernando Torres goal in the Champion's League quarter-final first leg at Anfield to claim a 3-1 victory. Two goals from Branislav Ivanovic and one from Didier Drogba settled the match.

Ivanovic- the Serbian defender from Chelsea - 2 goals had been the result of Hiddink exploiting the weakness of Liverpool's zonal marking system at set-pieces. The system meant that the Liverpool defenders were marking spaces and not conducting man to man marking. That gave Ivanovic a free run at every corner and he took full advantage with two similar headers past Jose Reina.


Hiddink says "If you feel that the opponent can be hurt in some parts of their team it would be stupid not to go for that. They have zonal defence at corners and there is no marking. We talked about that.

"We have players who are tall and are very brave going into the area. It was true we got a lot of benefit in the air from set pieces.

"You have to analyse where the weapons are with Liverpool and it is not so difficult to see it is Gerrard and Torres. You have to disarm them and Essien was the man who was key for this."

"To be honest to play Liverpool at Anfield is always a hard job, so at the end we were very happy with this result. It is unexpected to be honest but I think well deserved," he said.

"The next game we have to be very concentrated. Don't think we will take this very lightly because Liverpool have proved in the past they can surprise."

It was a tactical mistake by Benitez which should have been rectified at half time. To concede 2 similar goals to the same person in a similar situation is criminal..