Scolari's mind games only give his stars a headache

Chelsea's latest poor defeat should have Luiz Felipe Scolari rethinking his tactics and also his attempts at pre-match mind games, writes Simon Johnson.

His bizarre rant about how Chelsea have been regular victims of injustice from referees, even though the statistics fail to prove his point, backfired spectacularly.

If the Brazilian was hoping his words would influence Mike Riley to rule in his side's favour or even just get a change of fortune, it had the opposite affect. In truth, he should have perhaps been focusing more on his team's inability to create chances against well-organised defences than putting the spotlight on the man in black, who in fairness, didn't cope with the pressure yesterday.

The red half of Merseyside loathe no one more in a Chelsea shirt than Frank Lampard - they still haven't forgiven him for when he accidentally broke Xabi Alonso's ankle in 2005.

Lampard spoke about the incident in the build-up to the game and perhaps it was enough to refresh Riley's memory, who was also in charge of that game at Anfield.

It is still no excuse for missing the fact Lampard won the ball fairly this time before Alonso actually kicked him. Chelsea had played poorly up to that point but Liverpool had created very few chances.

It seemed likely that the game would end in a goalless draw with Lampard on the pitch.

However, once he departed, Liverpool had more space to exploit and grabbed their goals.

Scolari didn't want to talk about Riley too much after the match but the damage had been done.