Gerrard Will Not Be Spooked By Team Mindful of a Phantom Goal

The ghosts are all inside the head. Chelsea will still have difficulty in ignoring those poltergeists at Anfield tonight. There is no hope of convincing themselves that the past is irrelevant when seven of the likely line-up in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final were present when Liverpool eliminated them with Luis García's phantom goal in 2005.

If Michael Essien were not suspended 10 of today's probable selection would also have been on the scene last year when the crowd so spooked the visiting penalty takers that Rafael Benítez's side took the semi-final shoot-out 4-1. There has been a continuity about Chelsea that is not wholly satisfying. The owner, Roman Abramovich, hankers after a grandeur and excitement that is proving elusive as he learns that not all that an oligarch covets is within his grasp.

The weekend hint by the coach, Avram Grant, of an interest in Liverpool's Steven Gerrard, if it is taken as proof of a sincere determination to lure the midfielder, demonstrates extraordinary humility on Abramovich's part. He would, in effect, be braving the danger of being rebuffed for a third time by a mere footballer.

But what a footballer. Gerrard deals in the spectacular and, unlike global stars such as Juan Sebastián Verón and Andriy Shevchenko, who have floundered at Stamford Bridge, the Premier League is his natural milieu. While Grant's reference to the Liverpool midfielder could have been no more than a mischievous response to a question, Gerrard symbolizes the Chelsea craving to be something more than a tough side.

A person with Abramovich's assets must be set on having a line-up so dazzling and delightful that the resistance of the world is broken as it forsakes Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United and all other charmers to fall in love exclusively with Chelsea. These, it is fair to say, are not considerations that will trouble Liverpool, where a cessation of civil war in the boardroom would be satisfaction enough.

Angry as Benítez is over the machination that had Jürgen Klinsmann being sounded out as a potential replacement, he is at home when beleaguered.

No one will be pestering him to break loose from his pragmatism while his side is the one element of the club operating without rancor. Benítez, it is universally understood, excels at these set-piece fixtures for which he has schemed and prepared at length, wholly undisturbed by any bid for the Premier League title.

With Klinsmann bound for Bayern Munich, while Liverpool's co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett grapple one another to a standstill, Benítez is left in peace.The Spaniard has been exceedingly busy. Unlike Chelsea, the Liverpool line-up has been overhauled radically since the semi-final of 2005.

It looks as if Jamie Carragher and Gerrard will be the only survivors from three years ago. Indeed, half a dozen of the men who started then have subsequently been sold. This has been a revolution, yet its outcome is uncertain. Were Benítez truly under pressure to compete for the Premier League title, he would be facing dismissal because Liverpool remain also-rans. The extra dimension required has been barred to him for the moment.

His hankering after it was sensed in the purchases of Dirk Kuyt and Ryan Babel, but the former is not fast enough to be consistently incisive and the latter is still puzzling over a post in which he is neither a left-winger nor, as an inside-forward, a dependable link to Fernando Torres. The new elements in Liverpool's operations have a habit of being on the blink.

Torres, however, can take your mind off all that. Were Benítez not so matter-of-fact, he would crow hourly over his coup in persuading the Spain centre-forward to land at Anfield rather than, say, Old Trafford.

Strip away the mystique that swathes Liverpool, victors and runners-up in the Champions League over the last three years, and the fact remains that Chelsea have a greater number of assets. Should John Terry, for instance, regain the edge dulled by injury, he and Ricardo Carvalho stand as good a chance as any center-back pairing of shutting out Torres. With Gerrard around, the presence of Claude Makelele, patron saint of holding midfielders everywhere, is a relief to Grant.

Chelsea should have the means to prevail. Grant, with his implications that Jose Mourinho became too engrossed in the intricacies, is reminding his squad that they should not dread Liverpool, who have only beaten them once in eight attempts in the Premier League since Benítez landed in England.

Much rests with players such as Didier Drogba, who is capable of devastation too little seen this season. When he led the comeback against Arsenal last month, with two goals that preserved his club's pursuit of the Premier League title, it was a demonstration of an impact from the Ivorian that is too sporadic. Even he, however, need not feel that everything rests with his showing on this single occasion. The loud and eloquent crowd will not have the last word either. Chelsea do not have to conquer immediately. Unlike 2005 and 2007, there is to be a second chance in a second leg at Stamford Bridge. It could make all the difference.