SOCCER/Chelsea - 2 Aston Villa - 1: On their last visit to Anfield, Chelsea felt as if their world had fallen apart. Dumped out of the Champions League in the semi-finals by a disputed goal, they were eerily quiet in the dressingroom and John Terry sat crying with a towel over his head.
Over the next week Jose Mourinho's team have a chance not just to ease those memories but make the rest of the Premiership feel even more like weeping.
Chelsea play at Liverpool twice, in the Champions League on Wednesday and in the Premiership on Sunday. The results could make an already forlorn-looking pursuit of the domestic champions seem still more hopeless.
Arsene Wenger believes a defeat could change the course of Chelsea's season, as happened to his Arsenal side when their 49-game unbeaten Premiership run ended at Manchester United last October.
It was surely a mark of Chelsea's determination to retain total focus on Villa that Mourinho, Terry and Didier Drogba made no mention of the Liverpool games in their pieces in Saturday's programme.
Attention can switch now. Frank Lampard's free-kick and penalty enabled Chelsea to recover from conceding their first goal to improve their league record to seven wins out of seven. With a 10-point advantage over Manchester United and an 11-point lead on Arsenal, both of whom have a game in hand, the team could hardly be in a better frame of mind.
Mourinho rejects talk of seeking revenge at Liverpool but it is inconceivable that last season's Champions League exit will not sharpen their motivation on Wednesday. They go into the game with their squad in healthier shape than before the clubs' previous European meetings.
Last spring Chelsea were without Paulo Ferreira and Damien Duff, and Arjen Robben managed only a brief first-leg appearance. Now the right-back is fit, the wingers are available and have been joined by Shaun Wright-Phillips, and Michael Essien can fill the midfield slot vacated by Tiago.
Essien continued his impressive form here, using the ball well, winning it effectively and surging forward powerfully. He showed his versatility by playing the last half-hour at left back. Lampard also caught the eye, notably with some well-timed runs.
"Going to Anfield is always difficult and going there twice in a week even more so," Lampard said. "We look ready for it and we want to get the right results."
Villa gave Chelsea another tough game - last season they drew and lost 1-0. They tried to carry a threat without leaving themselves open to counter-attacks, got Luke Moore and Juan Pablo Angel close to Claude Makelele to hinder Chelsea's build-up and sought to deny their opponents time on the ball. Olof Mellberg played cleverly, sometimes coming well out of central defence to snuff out danger, until he fouled Drogba to concede the penalty.
With Liam Ridgewell also doing well in the second half, Chelsea's pressure, helped by a lively Duff, did not produce a stream of chances. Yet there was a certain inevitability about the winner, as there had been about an equaliser after Moore emerged from a Terry tackle to score. Within two minutes Angel foolishly broke off the end of Villa's wall and Lampard buried a soft free-kick.
"I just hope people don't develop the attitude that coming here and just keeping the score down will be enough," said David O'Leary, who speaks "often" to Mourinho, according to the Chelsea manager.
Can O'Leary see the champions slipping up? "They would have to lose a lot of players and see Mr Abramovich going skint in January," he replied.
Chelsea have made the best-ever start to a Premiership season and are creeping almost unnoticed towards Arsenal's unbeaten league record. They have gone 36 games without defeat since losing at Manchester City in October and match 50 comes on January 2nd.
"Against West Ham," Lampard said instantly when told of the date. "I'm more concerned and the whole of the club is more concerned about winning the title back- to-back," the midfielder stressed. "If that record comes, then it'll be fantastic but there's a lot of hard games to come between now and then."
They include trips to Arsenal and Manchester United. First, though, comes the small matter of Anfield.
Guardian Service
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)