16 Conclusions on Chelsea 3-1 Liverpool: Brilliant Cole Palmer exploits half-hearted Liverpool
Chelsea playmaker Cole Palmer ended his long goal drought, and deservedly so. This was his game, everyone else including Liverpool was just living in it.
1) It would be beyond facile to say the pressure was all on Chelsea here, given they had everything to lose in their battle for the top five while Liverpool had nothing more urgent on their minds than booking a barber’s appointment for their end-of-season parade.
Aston Villa’s victory over Fulham on Saturday, Newcastle’s late equaliser against Brighton, and the knowledge that Nottingham Forest still have their trip to Crystal Palace to come on Monday night all left Chelsea with little margin for error. Lose here, and their Champions League hopes would be as precarious as Hennimore’s job prospects. And Enzo Maresca’s, for that matter.
2) A shiny penny each for the thoughts of Eddie Howe, Nuno Espirito Santo and Unai Emery at Arne Slot opting to give Jarell Quansah, Harvey Elliott and Wataru Endo a lap of honour against one of their direct rivals for a Champions League place.
The midfield duo were put in for their first Premier League starts of the season, with Slot explaining before kick-off that he had explicitly left the influential Ryan Gravenberch out of his squad altogether purely so Federico Chiesa could come off the bench for the fifth league appearance the Italian needs to assure himself of a winner’s medal.
As far as Slot and Liverpool are concerned, that is just unfortunate timing for Chelsea’s top five rivals; what do they care who joins them in the Champions League next season? And besides, the rest of the side was as strong as ever. But you have to imagine there were grumbles in Newcastle, Nottingham and North London at that selection.
3) Those worries were brought to life as Chelsea took the lead inside three minutes, with the hosts carving the champions open with consummate ease.
Maresca has been criticised for his patient approach this season but that goal will have left him feeling smugly vindicated, starting as it did with Huddersfield Town legends Trevoh Chalobah and Levi Colwill patiently passing it out from the back before Romeo Lavia’s sudden change of pace and Cole Palmer’s clever zig-zagging run forced Curtis Jones into slipping on his f***ing arse.
The rest of the Liverpool midfield was nowhere to be found as the red shirts in the back line were stretched to breaking point by Chelsea’s runners into the box after the ball went wide to Pedro Neto. A desperately recovering Endo was far too distracted by trying to stay goal-side of Palmer to even attempt to cut out a ball that went straight past him and through to Enzo Fernandez to finish.
4) It could and probably should have been 2-0 just as quickly again, with Elliott and Endo again caught on the hop as Noni Madueke skipped into the box and dragged a shot wide of the post with better options available – if only he had just looked to see them waiting at the back post.
At this point of the game, Maresca’s pre-match claims that he did not expect Liverpool to offer any less of a challenge than usual looked utterly ludicrous. We’ve not seen a more pathetic attempt at resistance since the Federation’s first encounters with the Borg, or the last time we saw Manchester United play.
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5) Things settled down from there, and in the absence of the crowd making the noise themselves, we found some enjoyment in imaging the Liverpool players were shouting ‘ole’ as they passed the ball around without particularly going anywhere with it.
We really don’t want to make these conclusions all about Liverpool looking every inch like a side whose work for the season is already done, but…well, it was simply unavoidable. So from here, just take that as read throughout the rest of what we have to say, just to save us the bother of constantly banging on about it.
6) What we will say is that Chelsea could and probably should have taken better advantage of that before half-time, but were hamstrung by some pretty brainless moments from Madueke (as already noted) and from the young buck Nicolas Jackson as he unnecessarily strayed offside shortly before half time, causing the flag to go up the moment Madueke rounded Alisson and walked the ball into the net.
Both players were guilty of repeating those offences early in the second half, with Madueke doing brilliantly to blaze past Trent Alexander-Arnold and get to the edge of the box, only to blindly pass the ball straight to Jones.
A few minutes later, Jackson peeled off into Thierry Henry territory to go completely unmarked up the left, but started his run well before Madueke had the chance to turn and pass it through to him; he was once again several yards offside as a result.
Say what you will about Maresca’s tactics, but that kind of naivety has been just as big a factor in Chelsea’s stuttering post-Christmas form.
7. And speaking of major reasons behind both Chelsea’s mid-season decline and recent return towards form…
Palmer’s movement posed Liverpool with particular problems in the first half, which six months ago would be such an obvious thing to say as to barely be worthy of comment.
But after the playmaker’s dismal loss of form through a period in which he frankly just looked absolutely knackered, it was encouraging to see him feeling himself again. (And by ‘feeling himself’ we mean it in the way your mum would have said it after you recovered from a couple of days in bed with a cold, not in the ways Gen Z or perverts would use it, because we are both old and morally upstanding.)
Emboldened by the sheer amount of space he was getting, Palmer went up another gear in the second half and was absolutely irresistible as he squirmed past Kostas Tsimikas to get to the byline and play a dangerous ball across the face of the Liverpool goal.
The panic he had caused was evident in Liverpool’s response: an improved Endo, having earlier made a goal-saving tackle on Jackson off another Palmer-inspired move through Neto, slid in to stop Madueke from converting from point-blank range, only for Virgil van Dijk to smash a clearance into Quansah and into the net.
8) Palmer had by that point already repeated the trick on the other side, leaving the distinctly not-slow Conor Bradley in the dust to cut in from the left and catch Alisson off-guard by shooting from a narrow angle.
That shot was centimetres away from going in off the far post; instead it bounced harmlessly back into play. It’s a shame he hadn’t done anything to deserve the miss, otherwise our long-standing scheme to sell the headline ‘pole karma’ to the tabloids finally would have paid off.
Instead, by the time Palmer stepped up to place a penalty past Alisson deep into stoppage time, his man-of-the-match status had been firmly established – and his first goal since January – 18 games ago – was more than deserved.
Despite Liverpool getting their goal in the interim, this was well and truly Palmer’s game, and everyone else was just living in it.
READ MORE: Carragher thinks ‘world class’ Palmer could ditch ‘unstable’ Chelsea after ‘toxic’ turn
9) Van Dijk remains a brilliant and influential player for them, but there has been a bit of the Titus Bramble about him at times lately, hasn’t there?
Quansah’s own goal was more unfortunate than anything, unlike the far more avoidable blunder that led to the Dutchman causing Andy Robertson to put through his own net against West Ham.
Just like in that game, though, Van Dijk tried his utmost to cancel it out, going completely unmarked to nod home Alexis Mac Allister’s well-delivered corner.
It really was abysmal work from Chelsea, and they were fortunate it came as late as the 85th minute and thus gave Liverpool just ten more minutes in which to find a second. It never came.
10) That goal was a particular shame for Chalobah and Colwill, who started as Maresca’s centre-back duo for the fifth time in six Premier League games and looked to be on course for a third clean sheet across that spell.
Until that point, both players had kept their focus and made important interventions. Chalobah had a particularly strong outing, the highlight of which came as substitute Darwin Nunez looked to get clean through on Robert Sanchez.
With the centre-back already on a yellow card, there was both a red card and a penalty at risk had he got it even fractionally wrong; by getting it exactly right, he instead prevented what would have been a near-certain goal had it been anyone other than Nunez.
Chalobah could shoulder none of the blame for that set-piece blunder: he was occupied by Cody Gakpo. Colwill will argue it wasn’t his job, either; he was stationed zonally at the near post.
Whoever was responsible, though, Maresca will be desperate to sort it out before facing Newcastle and Nottingham Forest, who rank among the Premier League’s most dangerous sides from dead balls this season. They’re also playing Manchester United.
11) Nonetheless, it is worth commenting on Chelsea’s recent defensive improvement. Over their past ten Premier League games they have conceded just seven goals, the best such record in the division.
That run rate (0.7 goals conceded per game, for the mathematically challenged) is roughly twice as good as Chelsea had managed in the season up until then (1.36), and far outweighs their drop-off in goalscoring form over the same period.
It’s not coincidental that the two next-best defences in the Premier League over each side’s past ten games also belong to sides who have enjoyed a notably vast improvement in form after long, difficult spells: Manchester City and Wolves (both just eight conceded). Sometimes, going back to the fundamentals really does work wonders.
12) What is Jadon Sancho even for? Goals against Djurgarden and Ipswich and that’s about it, apparently.
13) Quansah was blameless for the own goal, but showed his naivety as he made the challenge on Moises Caicedo in injury time that gave Palmer that opportunity to convert from the spot.
The centre-back never really had a chance of getting there in time, panicking after Dominik Szoboszlai played an absolute hospital pass into the Ecuadorian’s path.
Quansah exceeded expectations after stepping into the side amid an injury crisis last season, but there’s a reason he has remained no more than a back-up option this season.
With Van Dijk signing his new deal, that puts Quansah and Liverpool in a tricky catch-22 position familiar to plenty of young players. He needs more experience to get those mistakes out of his game, but is also unlikely to get more experience at Liverpool because he still has those mistakes in his game.
At 22 years old, that’s fine for now, but he is not at all far away from entering Not A Kid Anymore territory. Next season will be interesting for the England international.
14) Can we all agree that the procedural formality of waiting for a team to kick off or take a goal kick before blowing the final whistle, only to issue the requisite three peeps the moment foot makes contact with leather, is an absolute absurdity?
If there is nothing that could possibly happen from the restart to belay that whistle, just stop bloody messing about and blow. It’s silly.
15) Likewise, we enjoyed Kelly Cates’ deft wording – “we have to apologise for the swearing” – after Palmer immediately came out with “s*** happens” the moment a microphone was stuck in his face after the game.
Yeah, you do, but you shouldn’t have to. Everyone grow up; it’s funny. And we include you in that, NewsNow and Google, making us use asterisks so we don’t get demoted.
16) Advantage Chelsea, then, at least until next week. Unless Forest go and win 9-0 at Selhurst Park on Monday night, Maresca’s side have just three more games to see through to secure Champions League football again after a two-year absence.
Newcastle and Forest are likely to put up far more of a fight than Liverpool offered here, but that trip to St James’ Park really does feel like a victory for either side would all but get the job done, given that both have a distinct goal difference advantage over both Forest and Villa. It could make for a scintillating game.
Either that, or Forest lose on Monday, Villa drop points to Bournemouth on Saturday, and it ends up as one of those games where the two sides go at it for 70 minutes before realising they’re pretty happy to take a mutually convenient point.
Come on Forest and Villa, then. This Champions League race is really the only interesting thing left about the Premier League. Don’t rob us of that.
