GiveMeSport
·27 April 2022
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·27 April 2022
Nine years ago, Steven Gerrard slipped over at Anfield and gifted a goal to Demba Ba.
Liverpool were on the verge of winning the Premier League title in 2013/14 and only needed to beat a second-string Chelsea side on home soil to stay top of the table.
Jose Mourinho rested a number of key players for the game due to the fact his side were still in the Champions League and as such, many predicted the rampant Reds to win with ease.
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But against all the odds, Chelsea won 2-0 on Merseyside thanks to Ba capitalising on Gerrard's slip and a late, late goal from Willian.
Liverpool went on to draw 3-3 at Crystal Palace in their next game after being 3-0 up at Selhurst Park, a result that effectively handed the title to Manchester City.
It was quite the implosion by Gerrard's team and unfortunately, it all started when the captain fell to the turf when attempting to control Mamadou Sakho's pass.
Ba then swooped in, charged towards goal and calmly slotted the ball past Simon Mignolet.
It was a moment football fans will never, ever forget and the question is; did the former Chelsea striker have any sympathy for Gerrard after basically ending his Premier League title dream?
The answer is - absolutely not.
In a 2019 interview, the man who recently retired from football said: “I didn’t feel sorry for him. I’m not a Steven Gerrard supporter. I’m not a Liverpool supporter.
“I’m not a Man City supporter or happy that they won the league.
“It’s all part of the game. It’s the same as Crystal Palace last year when they were safe and had nothing to play for, they went and played at Stoke and sent them down by winning. You go and do your job, you go to win.”
“That is what a striker does," Ba added when asked about the goal. "Like 90 per cent of other strikers, we are not built for defending and we’re not good at it.
“We can cheat a little bit. We are pressing but we are not really pressing the way that defenders are pressing.
“If a defender has the ball and turns, we start pressing the goalkeeper before he passes back because if they make a mistake, it is a chance.
“We always gamble and I was there at the right time. I gambled a little bit.
"Coming from the middle of the goal, I had no angle. I managed to go between the goalkeeper’s legs because the angle was so tight. It worked out.”
But did it actually mean much to Ba? Well, he replied to that question: “Not really. For them, obviously it was. But not for us. If they won that game they would have won the league.”
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