Chelsea drew 1-1 away at Liverpool on Sunday after Enzo Fernandez cancelled out Ryan Gravenberch’s opening goal in the first half, and Calum McFarlane said the visitors had enough in them to take all three points. The result at Anfield came after a run of poor form, but this was a far sharper Chelsea side, one that looked far closer to the team they believe they can be.
McFarlane said he thought Chelsea could have won the game, and much of that optimism came from the way Marc Cucurella kept finding space in dangerous areas. He said the Spaniard got into really good crossing positions and was unlucky not to come away with an assist. That mattered because Chelsea had been struggling to win games of football recently, and the club were not happy with either the form or some of the performances that had gone before this one.
The draw also carried added weight because it arrived just before the FA Cup final, where Chelsea are hoping to have Alejandro Garnacho and Pedro Neto available. McFarlane said the club were very hopeful the pair would be fit, though he stopped short of guaranteeing anything, saying they were hoping they would be available but did not know at that moment in time. For a side trying to steady itself after a difficult spell, that uncertainty is part of the picture now.
Chelsea’s improvement was not just about the scoreboard. McFarlane pointed to Levi Colwill as another major reason the team left Merseyside feeling encouraged. He said Colwill was exceptional against Liverpool, noting that the defender had been injured for a long time and that this was his first 90 minutes at Anfield away. In a match where Chelsea needed discipline and resilience, that was a meaningful return.
There was also a sharper edge to McFarlane’s assessment of the game’s key moments. He said a penalty shout was a clear penalty, one of those calls that could have changed the evening entirely. He also underlined how much Chelsea had created from wide and advanced areas, particularly through Cucurella, who is not a winger but has played there before, along with spells at left-back and in midfield. McFarlane said the full-back’s movement kept Liverpool under pressure and should have produced more than it did.
That is why the draw felt less like a cautious point and more like a missed chance. Liverpool were the side in front first at Anfield, but Chelsea answered in the first half and never looked settled for a straightforward damage-limitation exercise. They left with only one point, yet in the context of their recent run, the performance mattered almost as much as the result. For Chelsea, the question now is whether this was a one-off response or the start of a more convincing finish to the season.
