A missed penalty, two points dropped, but this was still a very good night for Chelsea.
No doubt when Antonio Conte’s players returned to the dressing room they were told of Arsenal’s shocking home loss to Watford and Tottenham’s draw at Sunderland — and one look at the league table will have made it a very pleasant journey home from that point.
This result keeps Liverpool at something more than arm’s length, 10 points off the lead, while Chelsea actually gain ground on Arsenal, who started the night in second place, and do not lose any to Tottenham. The only disappointment from the blue perspective was that had Diego Costa scored from the spot, it could almost have been game over.
Chelsea head coach Antonio Conte was more than happy to leave Anfield with the point, especially considering how the other results went and a chance to end Arsenal’s fading title dreams at the weekend:
“It is not easy to play against Liverpool in this moment after three defeats. It is not easy to play in this atmosphere,” he said.
“I am very proud of my players for the personality they showed tonight. It is a good point, for sure.
“When you have a good chance with a penalty in the 76th minute then you think you could win and take three points but Mignolet made a great save.
“We had two chances to score the second goal but it didn’t happen but we must be pleased.
“It wasn’t easy to play with the same intensity of Liverpool so we must be pleased.
“Now it is important to recover well as we wasted a lot of energy because the game was intense and there were a lot of mistakes.
“These high-intensity games it is very difficult to see mistakes and try to make corrections but I think today we played a really good game.”
