16 Conclusions on Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool: ‘Mini crisis’, Slot, Maresca, Mac Allister, Estevao, Jota
Liverpool are officially in a ‘mini crisis’ which Arne Slot and two players in particular seems to be making worse. Chelsea and Enzo Maresca took advantage.
1) Liverpool crisis confirmed
This was a palate-cleansing end to a day defined by the surprising levels of competence displayed by the generally more preposterous Premier League giants.
Spurs and Manchester United despatched promoted opponents and Arsenal comfortably sidestepped their usual West Ham obstacle before two crisis-adjacent pre-season title contenders clashed at Stamford Bridge in an absurdly expensive game characterised by a bizarre epidemic of failed five-yard passes.
These games are ultimately always better with a climactic winner and, more poignantly, a dramatic loser. There must always be a crisis club and the reigning champions in second have kindly stepped up with their first consecutive Premier League defeats since April 2023 heading into the international break.
2) Champions so disjointed
It instinctively feels hyperbolic to describe as such a team which started this season with seven straight victories in increasingly ludicrous circumstances. But this has been a damaging week of reversion to the mean.
While even the most ardent supporter will have accepted those early wins were never sustainable in nature, they might well have ultimately distracted a little too long from the fundamental structural issues in this side. Crystal Palace, Galatasaray and Chelsea were not the first teams to expose them, they were simply able to take advantage in a way those who came before could not.
These are excellent Liverpool players helmed by a phenomenal coach. But for the first time those two things seem entirely separate, often even entirely at odds. The transitional season has been solidified.
3) Slot decisions bizarre
A lot of that must fall on Arne Slot, as a world-record summer spend means any failure this season only can.
Liverpool ended that game with midfielders at centre-half and right-back with Jeremie Frimpong and Joe Gomez left on the bench, the actively detrimental Mo Salah completing another full 90 minutes, Wataru Endo introduced as their last substitute when chasing a winner and Federico Chiesa, with two goals and assists each this season in 153 minutes, unused.
It was diabolical game management whatever result Slot was aiming to deliver when the scores were level. Liverpool kept attacking with reckless abandon and that Chelsea winner had been coming; Enzo Fernandez hit the post, Jamie Gittens should have scored and only a poor Marc Guiu touch prevented him from going clean through before Estevao sealed it.
4) Carragher nailed it
Absolutely fair play to Jamie Carragher for not only having Liverpool bang to rights on the opening weekend, but pulling Slot up on it to his face.
The Dutchman allayed any concerns about the defence and committing too many players forward when games are in the balance with an uncomfortably Ange “that’s also who we were and who we are,” adding, “that’s why we see such a nice game if you watch Liverpool. We are not going to a low block to defend.”
It might have been an idea late on with Ryan Gravenberch at centre-half, Dominik Szoboszlai to his side at left-back and a completely fresh Chelsea attack. A point would have been a solid result but Liverpool remained so open until the bitter end and it cost them.
5) A huge win for Maresca
Chelsea were good value for the win, the far superior side in the first half who lost control for a time slightly in the second but benefited from their farcical player stockpiling.
For Enzo Maresca, this was a significant moment. His first meaningful Premier League win against any of Liverpool, Arsenal or Manchester City was delivered with an astute gameplan in spite of multiple defensive injuries and the absence of Cole Palmer.
All five of his substitutions were positive and contained perhaps the biggest difference between his and Slot’s approach. When the latter had to take off Konate the response was to drop Gravenberch into the backline having already shifted Szoboszlai from No.10 to right-back. Chelsea lost two more centre-halves to injury but still ended the game with a Gusto-James-Hato-Cucurella four which offered stability and cohesion.
It was certainly an improvement on his calls at Old Trafford.
6) The perfect send off
Maresca also personally maintained Chelsea’s proud red card record with a Jose Mourinho celebratory sprint down the touchline. Perhaps the key is to get sent off in second half stoppage time and ensure the Italian has no time to mess everything up.
7) Estevao is a star
Guiu and Gittens were at the very least very positive if slightly unpolished. It was fitting that Estevao, younger than both but seemingly far more mature as a player, settled the game.
It was his glorious cross that Fernandez nodded against the post, his positivity which emitted through the rest of the team. No Chelsea player had more shots than Estevao, only three made more tackles and just Marc Cucurella created more chances.
From the 60th minute to the 74th, Chelsea had zero shots to four and conceded the equaliser; Estevao came on in the 75th and transformed the game.
8) How Chelsea preyed on Liverpool weakness
All the Chelsea wingers were good. Alejandro Garnacho was bright, helping force the half-time substitution of the booked Conor Bradley after drawing a foul from the right-back just before the break. Pedro Neto could not get much to pay off but at least made the ball stick in a particularly wasteful game and helped in terms of tracking back.
Both spent an inordinate amount of time on the floor appealing for fouls but Chelsea knew what they were buying.
Estevao changed the game and Gittens stretched what technically must be described as the Liverpool defence better than anyone. The Reds have a significant full-back issue and Chelsea manipulated it to their advantage.
9) Liverpool’s passing
Liverpool also appear to have a completing ostensibly simple passes to teammates problem. The amount of straightforward square balls which did not find their target was laughable.
Giorgi Mamardashvili – although it was arguably Virgil van Dijk’s fault – Ibrahima Konate and Alexis Mac Allister all passed the ball out for a Chelsea throw-in at some stage under little to no pressure. Liverpool struggled for rhythm and momentum because they kept giving possession away carelessly – and that has become a maddening theme.
10) Mac Allister so poor
It feels harsh to single out any one Liverpool player for their performance but Mac Allister was abysmal. Beyond his errant passing it seemed like a Chelsea shirt would glide past him every ten minutes or so as he drowned in the midfield battle.
The Moises Caicedo goal – our thoughts are with John Aldridge at this time – was just the most glaring example, as a simple sidestep eliminated the admittedly isolated Mac Allister from the game entirely.
It still required the rest of the Liverpool defence to step off Caicedo for infuriatingly long, allowing the midfielder to set himself and line up a shot a couple of times before actually cracking one into the top corner. But it came from those issues in the one area Liverpool didn’t really change this summer: the midfield.
Mac Allister saved his best for late on, retrieving the ball from one of his own blocked shots before hammering a simple five-yard pass to the overlapping Gakpo out for a Chelsea goal kick. He was substituted soon after and still hasn’t completed a 90-minute game since April.
In his rebuttal of Carragher in August, Slot cited the return to form and fitness of Mac Allister. It is something Liverpool are still waiting for in October.
11) Mo problems
Cutting inside from the right before curling an equally harmful display high and wide was Salah. An exquisite trivela cross for Alexander Isak aside, the Egyptian continued his worrying recent downwards trend.
Those wasted Liverpool counters in which he rejected numerous supporting teammates and never looked like scoring as a result felt infernal. Salah ought to have done better at the start of the second half from a sumptuous Florian Wirtz flick, too.
This is a fragmented attack of exceptional individuals not yet close to working as a collective in a system, and Salah is suffering the most for it.
12) Van Dijk unearths an uncomfortable truth
But then it was Salah’s tears after the emotional release of the Bournemouth win which briefly reminded the insular footballing world of the unique challenges Liverpool face this season.
“It was quite tricky for me because I didn’t prepare myself for that,” Salah said after that game. “Usually I clap for the fans after the game to tell them, like, thank you for coming for the game. But then once I stood in front of the Kop, they were singing for Diogo.
“Then my emotions came and in my mind [I was thinking about him]. Then you just to handle it. But then you can see, many people in the Kop are also showing their emotions or what they feel. So then you start to break down a little bit.”
Maresca, who endured the death of teammate Antonio Puerta as a player, was visibly emotional when praising Liverpool for how they have handled the Jota situation, calling it “difficult to explain because there is no solution. You have just to deal with it”.
After the game, Van Dijk made an indirect reference by saying: “I told you all many times that this season is going to be very difficult for us, not just because of what’s happening on the pitch, but because of what happened outside of it.”
It is not an excuse. It is not an exemption Liverpool can or will point to after every negative display or result. But it is a reminder that these are actual people dealing with grief in real time, in an already painfully public and critical arena, while being expected to perform at an elite level two or three times a week.
Football as a sport and a media-dominating behemoth has never been properly equipped to deal with actual tragedy, catastrophe or loss without constantly framing everything in an ultra-competitive context. How the impact of Jota’s death has been overlooked by us all only underlines that.
Liverpool can and must find ways past it but it should not be forgotten that this is something these players might carry for the rest of their lives, nor should it be mocked or ridiculed when one of them alludes to those personal struggles when trying to make sense of things going wrong in a professional capacity.
13) Two more shine for Chelsea
It will be interesting to see precisely where Chelsea sell Josh Acheampong in the summer. Neither he nor Benoit Badiashile were perfect in sub-optimal circumstances but the teenager impressed on his fourth career Premier League start.
That clean tackle on Isak followed by a burst past Mac Allister into the Liverpool half was wonderful.
And Jorrel Hato was excellent as his replacement for the final half an hour, especially when somehow evading four Liverpool players in the middle third to set up the counter Gittens wasted.
As long as the Chelsea defensive injury curse abates soon, they might be alright.
14) Chelsea midfield the key
Romeo Lavia impressed from the bench, too. His incisive passing and body feints tore open those chasms in the Liverpool defence and midfield.
With Caicedo doing it all alongside him it was one of those moments when the method in Chelsea’s apparent madness was impossible not to appreciate. And it remains quite funny that they both rejected Liverpool.
15) The Wirtz is yet to come
That pirouette flick for the Salah chance was sublime. It suggested that when Wirtz came on and made Stamford Bridge host to the four most expensive players in Premier League history, the German was in a mood to set aside his issues and decide the game.
The following 45 minutes said otherwise. It is rare to see such a blatant case of one player being on a completely different wavelength to that of his teammates but the more time Wirtz has to settle at Liverpool, the worse it seems to get.
At one point with the ball on the edge of the box the £116m footballer lost it without being tackled because of a heavy touch.
Between this and the Bradley-Szoboszlai mess at right-back, perhaps Trent Alexander-Arnold was quite difficult to replace after all.
16) The Liverpool line we needed…
“This is certainly a mini crisis.”
Thank you, Jamie Redknapp. Fingers crossed Lord Sugar doesn’t take action this time, fella.
