By history 
So yesterday I got this itch to dig into how Liverpool and Chelsea actually set up against each other over the years. You know, beyond just the results. Wanted to see the actual formations, who played where, and which setups actually gave the other team headaches. Figured it might be fun for my footie mates here.
Getting Started Was a Mess
First thing I did was open my laptop like, “Right, let’s find every Liverpool vs Chelsea lineup.” Sounded simple, yeah? Nope. Typed “Liverpool Chelsea past lineups” into the search bar, clicked the top result. Big mistake. Got hit with tonnes of ads flashing everywhere, and the actual info? Patchy. Only showed maybe the last couple seasons. Useless.
Scratched my head, remembering the old sites I bookmarked years ago. Found this one football stats archive I used back in uni. Clicked that link praying it still worked. Thank god, it loaded! Looked like it hadn’t been updated since 2010, though. Crap. Needed way more history than that.
The Real Digging Begins
Took a deep breath. Decided to go straight to the proper sources. Clicked open the official Premier League site. Found their match centre archive thing. Still annoying to navigate! Had to pick a season, then find the fixture, click again… did this manually for like the last 15 seasons. My fingers were getting tired clicking “Next Season” over and over.
Copied each lineup for every single league meeting into this massive messy spreadsheet:
- Season (e.g., 2022/23)
- Date
- Venue (Anfield / Stamford Bridge)
- Liverpool Formation & Starting XI
- Chelsea Formation & Starting XI
- Result
Oh man, those early 2000s lineups! Seeing names like Didier Drogba for Chelsea and Xabi Alonso for Liverpool popped up. Proper nostalgia trip. Forgot how often Mourinho played with a super tight back four and just lumped it to Drogba at Anfield. It was ugly… but it worked sometimes! Found a few gaps where the official data was missing – probably needed old match reports for those.
Figuring Out What Actually Worked
Got my spreadsheet looking halfway decent after a few hours. Now the important bit: spotting the patterns. Scrolled through, looking for the “W” in the result column, then checking the formations.
Couple things jumped out:
- When Liverpool played that intense high press with the 4-3-3 (think peak Salah-Firmino-Mané years), Chelsea often looked totally lost trying to play out from the back, especially at Anfield. Loads of errors, lots of Liverpool goals.
- Chelsea had weird success sometimes with 3-5-2. Remember that? Three centre-backs, wing-backs high, two strikers. They didn’t do it often, but when they did against Klopp’s early Liverpool, they nicked a few wins/draws by packing the middle and hitting on the counter. Hazard was a nightmare in that system.
- Big games often came down to the midfield battle. Whoever had the engine room firing usually edged it. Think Fabinho-Henderson-Wijnaldum versus Kante-Jorginho-Kovacic. Physical, nasty, proper scrap. Score draws galore when it was even.
Honestly, the amount of draws in their history is just mad. Loads of cagey 1-1s and 0-0s, especially when both managers were playing scared.
Wrapping Up My Brain Dump
Sat back after closing the laptop. Felt proper tired but also buzzing. Best takeaway? There’s no magic bullet formation that always wins. It depended so much on what players were available that season and how brave the manager was feeling. Chelsea trying tiki-taka against Klopp’s pressing monsters always ended badly for them. Liverpool being too open against peak Mourinho Chelsea? Slaughter. Seeing it laid out though… it makes more sense now why some games panned out the way they did.
Definitely keeping that spreadsheet handy. Might dig into the cup games next time. Anyway, hope that ramble was useful for someone!
