Just when the stage seemed set for a launch moment from Liverpool’s new stars, Chelsea’s great hope provided one. Just when the Premier League champions looked like they could snatch another stoppage-time winner, Estevao gave Chelsea what their late siege deserved. Liverpool got what was coming. This was of course the second time in a week that they have lost 2-1 to a late goal, to make it a third successive defeat.
Liverpool are now very much in a classic Premier League crisis. Chelsea are out of one, as Enzo Maresca almost symbolised with that Jose Mourinho-style run down the touchline to celebrate the winner.
That resulted in yet another red card, this time for the manager himself, but it’s hard to think that anyone will care too much about that. Everything is now so much clearer at Chelsea going into the international break.
That doesn’t just apply to results. It’s also how they got there.
As the game ticked into the final half-hour, and Liverpool were building some momentum following Cody Gakpo’s equaliser, Maresca knew exactly what he had to do with his substitutes. That’s all the more impressive given that Slot himself mentioned after the game that Chelsea had eight players out, and it could be a “positive” for them.
Instead, Romeo Lavia started to stem midfield, and ensure Chelsea were driving forward again. Jorrel Hato offered a required stability in defence. Estevao, from 75 minutes, was ready to seize the occasion.
There were more than enough occasions when the young Brazilian seized the ball from a Liverpool player lax in possession, something that was a feature of the game.
Against that, Slot’s changes seemed to cede the game. They finished with two midfielders in the back four. That just can’t work in a match in the balance like this.
People can of course point to available personnel, and the pattern of the game, but there is maybe something much bigger.
This Liverpool don’t yet make sense in the same way. When you look at the available players, and particularly the expense of the new attackers, it’s actually hard to see what the obvious best formation is.
Florian Wirtz, initially dropped, is used at the tip of midfield but hasn’t yet physically adapted to the position in this league. Mohamed Salah seems to be missing Trent Alexander-Arnold, and hasn’t yet synced with a changing frontline. From all that, the balance of the team looks wrong, and opposition sides can run right through their centre.
This was what happened with Moises Caicedo’s sensational opening goal. The strike was superb and seemed to pick up speed as it rocketed towards the top corner, but that was in considerable contrast to how easy Liverpool made it for him by opening up the space. Caicedo was able to slip past Alexis Mac Allister and even take another set-up touch before he struck.
Liverpool shouldn’t have allowed it.
There are multiple caveats to this, of course, which is why we obviously aren’t talking about a true “crisis”. Isak will obviously get fit and come good. Wirtz will adapt. Liverpool will instantly start to look better, and Slot’s new formation will be more easily facilitated. It shouldn’t be forgotten this is also a team coping with grief, after the Diogo Jota tragedy.
And they’re still just a point off top.
But that comes after being five points clear a few weeks ago, and after so many warning signs.
All of this was coming. It’s always the other side of late goals, too, in how a regular need for them at once showcases character but also flaws.
Liverpool are now suffering the other side, in how they’re starting to concede such moments.
Hence, all of these caveats can co-exist with the fact the team doesn’t look right at the moment. It doesn’t make sense.
The disconnect could be seen in the number of basic bad passes. Over half the team were responsible for such moments, sometimes playing the ball several yards beyond intended targets or straight out of play.
There was an irony to one of those touches actually setting up Liverpool’s equaliser. Isak attempted to take the ball under control, only to divert it towards goal. Gakpo took the chance.
The greater significance is that there was a randomness about it. Liverpool look like a team looking for connections rather than knowing them.
Hence more contrasts like Salah offering one brilliant ball for Isak, but also so many bad finishes; or Wirtz producing that sublime turn to set up the Egyptian but then do little else.
Right now, rather than collective integration, they’ve got individual instinct. Slot did reference some of the possible reasons for this after the game, as he said that the Champions League schedule ensured he didn’t have the same time to train.
He also insisted that a draw would have been much more deserved.
Maresca might have said otherwise, but his red card ensured he couldn’t speak to media. To give Chelsea their due, too, it is often said there’s an element of this “randomness” about their recruitment. The squad doesn’t seem to be built towards the same vision that Liverpool’s does.
And yet, as this game entered its crucial stages, it was Maresca that had a better idea of what to do.
Malo Gusto had already been an early masterstroke in midfield. Chelsea went man-to-man when Liverpool were attacking, but Gusto often did the work of multiple men.
Then, when Maresca had to change, despite it limited options, he had a clarity. Estevao had a focus. Afterwards, all eyes were on him. His run for that winning goal was a natural follow-on from an all-energy display.
Liverpool, despite the ampleness of their attacking options and extravagance of the summer spending, seemed short of ideas. They were mostly relying on rushes and moments.
A coach as good as Slot is of course almost certain to fix this. The sudden risk is that Arsenal, after so much doubt, can go on the kind of run that Liverpool did last season.
Slot may now be enduring the other side of that, too. The breaks aren’t coming. It isn’t fitting in the same way. This, consequently, was a scrambled late Chelsea win that still made a lot of sense.
