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There used to be a rivalry here, once. Two decades ago this was genuinely the most foreboding fixture in English football; a decade ago it was still deciding the destiny of league titles; five years ago it was still appointment viewing. Here, amid a fiesta of missed chances and offside flags, a deeply unserious Chelsea beat a Liverpool team that clearly couldn’t care less.
The score could have been 5-0 or 5-5 or 0-0 and frankly nobody would have been any the wiser. There was a guard of honour at the start. There were triumphal odes from the away end. Chelsea fans retorted with the Steven Gerrard song, and the “you’ll never get a job” song, and the “always the victims” song. What was it people were saying about football becoming ever more predictable, ever more rote, ever more uninspiring?
As it was, Liverpool’s eighth and biggest defeat of the season also tightened Chelsea’s grip on that precious fifth Champions League spot, and if we glimpsed anything here it was perhaps the growing ability of Enzo Maresca’s side to ride out the tough periods and make their moments of supremacy matter. A very early goal by Enzo Fernández set the tone; a deeply comical own goal by Jarell Quansah doubled their lead, and Cole Palmer’s penalty with almost the final kick made the points safe.
Liverpool had 65% possession and beyond Virgil van Dijk’s valedictory late header, it’s hard to recall a single thing they did with it. Arne Slot rotated heavily and in the process reminded us why he doesn’t rotate more often. It is rare for a champion team to be met with the resounding consensus that it needs to be broken up and rebuilt as soon as possible. But here, as Liverpool’s second-string midfield returned Chelsea’s guard of honour with one of their own, it was possible to see why.
There is of course partial mitigation to be found in the weird post-title vibes, a very late-afternoon-at-Greggs energy, where all the pastries are tepid, stacked in the wrong place and faintly flecked with steak sauce, even the doughnuts. All season Liverpool have been laser-locked on this one singular objective, so what happens when you suddenly take it away? Perhaps a performance like this.
And there was a faintly farcical air to that opening goal, Fernández allowed to march straight through the middle of the field unchecked, with time even to take a touch as he met Pedro Neto’s cross 12 yards out. Chelsea were rampant during those first minutes, and with a little more precision could have put the game out of sight early. Nicolas Jackson was offside four times, equalling his own Premier League record for the season.
Of course, precision has long been one of Chelsea’s main issues, an issue that long predates Maresca, the wasted chances and wasted potential reflecting those wasted millions off the pitch. And if there is at least a shape and a solidity to them now, two hard-working banks of four off the ball, then what Maresca has given in backbone he has taken in flair and fun.
The upshot is that it only really takes a moment for the entire mood of the stadium to turn. Nobody ever really seems to be having a good time. The body language on the pitch is still awful. Neto needlessly headed the ball out for a corner and the crowd pretty much screeched in frustration.
The good news for Chelsea was that Liverpool were more than happy to do the job for them. Palmer, having long since given up on Neto outside him, simply dribbled past his team-mate on the right wing and squared it for Madueke. Wataru Endo made the initial tackle but Van Dijk’s rushed clearance smacked Quansah on the thigh and rebounded in: truly, a goal worthy of hungover champions.
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The last half hour passed in something of a blur. Darwin Núñez and Mohamed Salah both missed simple headers to cut the deficit; Palmer and Jadon Sancho could easily have added a third goal, and even if Van Dijk’s late header from Alexis Mac Allister’s corner summoned up a little basic species pride, there was simply too little intensity, too many passengers in red, to make it stick.
And so with the seconds leaking away, Moisés Caicedo galloped forward, finally released from his right-back prison by the arrival of Reece James, one of the three right-backs on the Chelsea bench. As he met the ball, Quansah wearily lunged in and brought him down. Palmer’s penalty seemed unduly freighted with tension, heaviness, perhaps even nerves. But he slotted the ball home safely enough to end an 18-match scoring drought, a welcome hit of confidence ahead of big tests at home and in Europe.
These last four games – and we can safely write off the second leg against Djurgarden – will define Maresca’s first season at Chelsea, a season that has seen genuine changes to the style and organisation of play. And even if this is still a team prone to bizarre fits and outbursts, there has been real progress here too, the makings of a recognisable identity, even if much of the Stamford Bridge crowd remains largely unsold on it.
