“I’d rather die knowing that we tried” – Brendan Rodgers reflects on his tactics that saw Chelsea beat Liverpool in 2014 | OneFootball

When Liverpool and Chelsea met at Anfield in April 2014, it was a real sliding doors moment for Brendan Rodgers’ Reds and now he has taken time to reflect on the events of the day.

Speaking on ‘Kammy and Ben’s Proper Football Podcast’, the current Leicester City boss discussed his thoughts on the game: “There was a lot of emotion in that Chelsea game, so if I was to do anything different, it would be that.

“I would’ve maybe framed the emotional side of it a little bit differently.

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“But actually, the game idea, you wouldn’t do that (do anything different). You wouldn’t ask Pep Guardiola to do something totally different for that game. We went out to attack the game and for 70 minutes we played really well.

“The first half, we should’ve been up. José had them banked up. They were deep, they were tight, we just couldn’t make the breakthrough.

“Then right on half time, we had the unfortunate slip with Stevie and they score. That then makes it even harder and we’re chasing the game then. Probably that little bit of inexperience, from the team and maybe from me as well… it becomes emotional then.

“Really we could’ve drew the game and gone on and won the title.

“I’d rather die knowing that we tried to play how we played. Sit defensive and deep? You just don’t do that.

“My philosophy has been to attack. Attacking means defending well. That was the trademark of that team.

“It was just one of those things. We nearly did it.”

Had Steven Gerrard not slipped, had Demba Ba not scored, had we managed to win the game, would we have Jurgen Klopp? Would the Northern Irishman still be our boss? Where would the club be today?

It wasn’t to be for us, nor was it for the boss at the time and within a few years our best player, captain and manager had all left the club.

So much changed so quickly afterwards and the efforts of the team in that excruciating campaign has been largely forgotten and underplayed but we were so close to glory.

It’s interesting to hear the lack of desire for change from the 49-year-old, eight years on from a fateful Merseyside day.

He is certainly a much more experienced man now than he was that day and it’s interesting to think whether the job and the game just came too early in his career.

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