Matt Beard: Frustrated By Chelsea Debacle But Looking Forward to the Continental Cup

The FA’s handling of the postponement of Sunday’s match against Chelsea was a joke. It seemed that everyone wanted to pass the buck and the safety of the players wasn’t considered until they were sliding across the frozen pitch like it was a hockey game. They played six minutes of the match before giving it up, not before plenty of unnecessary bruises to the players and Reds’ fans making the long journey down to London.

Both Matt Beard and Chelsea manager Emma Hayes had plenty to say about the delayed decision, insisting that they both wanted the match called off much earlier but were overruled.

In his weekly column for the official site, Beard put a final cap on the episode as he focuses on the game ahead.

“To be perfectly honest with you, ourselves and Chelsea are lucky that none of our players got injured, especially on the touchline in front of the dugouts,” he said. “I did raise that concern when the covers came off, because there was no sun on that side of the pitch whatsoever, and you couldn’t even get your key into the ground like they do with the cricket.

“At the end of the day, it shouldn’t be down to me and Chelsea manager Emma Hayes to go to the referee to say it was unsafe.

“I’ve seen the statement from the FA, and ourselves and Chelsea got told at 9.30am on Sunday that the pitch wasn’t playable. Ultimately the decision to change that should never happen at any level of football, and I just think it’s made a bit of a mockery of the whole thing, to be perfectly honest.”

Their next game is in the League Cup where Liverpool progressed out of the group stages. They are set to play against West Ham on Wednesday.

About the game, Beard said, “We are really looking forward to it. We wanted to get out of the group stage, which was vitally important, and we managed to do that. Hopefully we can progress in this tournament and get to the semi-finals, which would be fantastic because it’s a competition we want to go as far as we can this season.

“We know it’s going to be a tough game, especially when West Ham lost 2-0 to Everton on Merseyside on Sunday, and it’s always tough to play a team that has just been beaten.”

The League Cup has been where Liverpool have excelled in the first half of the season. Hopefully they can pull off another victory against seventh placed West Ham so that they can continue on in the tournament.