Liverpool’s New Year resolution foiled by West Ham

Hapless Reds unable to prevent hosts winning 2-0 courtesy Antonio, Carroll

LONDON: Andy Carroll and Michail Antonio both scored for a second successive match as West Ham United leapfrogged Liverpool in the Premier League table by beating them 2-0 on Saturday.

The pair had scored in the 2-1 victory over Southampton that ended a run of eight games without a win and their efforts against Liverpool at Upton Park ensured that Slaven Bilic’s side started 2016 on a high.

While Bilic could draw satisfaction from his side’s display — and in particular the return of Dimitri Payet following a seven-game absence with an ankle injury — for Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp there was only frustration that his team was unable to build on successive single-goal victories.

Liverpool have now lost six league games this season — four since Klopp succeeded the sacked Brendan Rodgers in October.

Klopp had warned that his players would have to show grit in order to emerge from this period with their top-four challenge intact, but their display suggested they were feeling the effects of the festive programme.

Liverpool were disjointed and unconvincing, offering only occasional threats, and while they had opportunities to get back into the game, they lacked the cutting edge to make more of the few chances that came their way.

Hiddink demands Chelsea find winning formula

Guus Hiddink has challenged his Chelsea flops to rediscover the winning formula as they start the new year with a tricky trip to Crystal Palace on Sunday.

Hiddink’s side have drawn against Watford and Manchester United since the Dutchman returned for his second spell as Chelsea interim manager following Jose Mourinho’s sacking.

That those two workmanlike performances were regarded as cause for encouragement shows just how far the champions had fallen during the miserable final days of Mourinho’s troubled reign.

In a reversal of fortune that would have seemed remarkable at the end of last season when Chelsea were hoisting the Premier League trophy after beating Palace, Alan Pardew’s fifth placed Eagles are now 11 points above the 14th-placed Blues.

“We have started gathering some points. It [the draw with United] was the third consecutive game we didn’t lose but that’s not enough,” said Hiddink. “We must come now in to a winning period of games, that’s important.”

In contrast to Chelsea’s woes, Palace, so long one of London’s lesser lights, now harbour genuine hopes of securing one of the few European berths in their history.

Pardew’s men are unbeaten in their last six matches and are unlikely to have any inferiority complex against Chelsea, having defeated them twice in their last four meetings, including a 2-1 success at Stamford Bridge earlier this season.

Meanwhile, Everton host Tottenham Hotspur at Goodison Park in the other Premier League fixture on Sunday.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2016.

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