Oh Dear Carlo....

I had tears in my eyes on Saturday pre-kick off. A great atmosphere, a few jokey boos directed towards Drogba when he missed the target in the warm up and a rapturous welcome for Torres. On top of this, gentlemanly applause from Chelsea fans for Steve Clarke and Glen Johnson. We were back with a couple of top signings and it looked like Roman had not let the club rot as many of us had predicted he would.

Then came the teams news - Torres to start, hurrah! Drogba to start alongside, double hurrah! Anelka to start.... er, three strikers up front? Anyway, I am in a good mood so triple hurrah!

Then the game kicked off with Liverpool playing with just Kuyt up front. From the opening exchanges it was quite obvious that Chelsea's lop-sided team were struggling. We were eventually beaten by a team with better tactics and a bigger heart - a team which had its fair share of injuries and players out of position such as Johnson at left back.

The irony for me was to see Liverpool adopt the same tactics that Chelsea had under Mourinho. 4-5-1 with Kuyt the loan striker and wingbacks tormenting our fullbacks. Meireles kept making roving, unmarked runs through the centre when they attacked (as Lampard used to do for us) and with more accuracy we could have easily been down by two goals at half-time.

The blame for the performance must go with Carlo who seemed to revert to his Ranieri persona. It was almost as if Roman had picked the team with our biggest and most expensive names on the pitch at the expense of formation. Mikel had his malco hat on; Essien looked a shadow of his former self and Lampard does not look happy playing the role of midfield support rather than being able to join the attack. It is a waste of space to have Anelka playing a midfield role on the pitch when we have Malouda and Kalou on the bench: we ended up finishing the game with the team that should have started.

With hindsight, Torres should not have begun this game and the team that defeated Sunderland should have started today. I can imagine Alan Hansen laughing at our formation of three strikers up front when the opposition only had one.

The chances of us winning the league is more remote than ever. If we had won then the romantic in me would have thought we had a slim chance still with United home and away to contend with and other results going our way over the weekend. Instead, Chelsea supporters have been let down by odd decision making again that I feel will cost us should be make the latter stages of the Champions League. Even worse is to be on the same level of points as Tottenham.

As for Torres - he had a single one-on-one which he spurned but you cannot blame him for a lacklustre debut when he had so many cooks spoiling the broth alongside him. How he must be feeling today when the manager took him off with thirty minutes still to play is anyone's guess - a normal manager would have brought him on as a sub rather than starting with him. I liked Luiz's tackles and hair though when he came on!

I cannot begrudge Liverpool their win - I hope one day Steve Clarke will come back to manage us... it is more painful to see their less than salubrious fans enjoying their day while spending the game throwing Torres shirts and other detritus on the pitch - that is what hurts the most.