The previous time Chelsea lost to Liverpool they were labelled the “blue billion-pound bottle jobs”. Eight months on, there was a more flattering appraisal, and from the victor. “If I would be a Chelsea manager, I would say if we can play like this at Anfield, we can compete for a top-four position,” said Arne Slot. This wasn’t a repeat of the Carabao Cup final, the extra-time failure against Jurgen Klopp’s kids, or their last trip to Anfield, the 4-1 walloping in January.
There was more respectability in a reverse. “We don’t like to lose, but if we have to, we choose this way,” said Enzo Maresca, who pronounced himself “proud but also upset”. The Italian may have been exaggerating when he said: “We controlled most of the game”. Slot’s verdict on his 2-1 win may have been fairer. “In an ideal world, we would have outplayed them completely but it was an equal game,” he said.
There wasn’t parity in the scoreline but then Chelsea have not been Liverpool’s equals of late. They have finished behind them in seven successive seasons. Klopp’s last three trophies came from finals against Chelsea, even if two were decided on penalties and the other in extra time. In a comparison of new managers, Maresca ended his first transfer window with Chelsea’s spending up to around £1.3bn in two-and-a-half years. Liverpool gave Slot one new signing for now, at a cost of £10m, but he started from a higher base.
Slot has talked up Chelsea; before their trip and after it. Rather than fourth, defeat left them in sixth. So did Mauricio Pochettino, four months ago. If there is a feeling of progress, that Maresca is making sense of the madness at Stamford Bridge, there were also reasons to wonder if Slot’s prognosis is overly optimistic.
Chelsea were enterprising, but they have been entertainers in their time under Pochettino and Maresca. They conceded too many goals last season, some 63. Now they have a mere two clean sheets in eight games. Maresca shrugged off the first they let in at Anfield as a penalty, though arguably they were fortunate a second spot kick was overturned. As for the winner, he argued the high defensive line which allowed Curtis Jones to sneak in behind the defence has saved Chelsea five or six goals already this season.
The issue may lie not with the strategy but the execution. In that respect, Maresca was impeded. Chelsea have accumulated so many yellow cards over the last 14 months there was always a danger indiscipline would come at a cost. This was the wrong day for Marc Cucurella and Wesley Fofana to be banned. Malo Gusto, used out of position at left-back, was not close enough to Mohamed Salah when he crossed for Jones’ winner; Reece James did not track him. Tosin Adarabioyo, deputising for Fofana, risked a red card for his early foul on Diogo Jota, though a yellow was the right punishment; it was, though, another moment that involved that high defensive line.
Maresca changed three-quarters of his defence after 53 minutes: the booked Adarabioyo departing along with the injury-prone James, with Malo Gusto swapping flanks. Yet even when there was continuity at the back, there were chances for opponents.
Only five clubs have conceded more shots on target than Chelsea this season. Robert Sanchez stands third in the division for saves, though after his tour de force against Nottingham Forest came a more flawed display at Anfield.
Chelsea’s identity has shifted rapidly. They won the 2021 Champions League with its most frugal defence in the knockout stages. For much of the two decades of Roman Abramovich’s ownership, they were pragmatists. Now the accusation may be that they are not pragmatic enough.
Maresca began his reign playing 4-3-3 against Manchester City with a trio who, with varying degrees of accuracy, could be called defensive midfielders. It left Cole Palmer stranded on the right wing. Maresca played 4-3-3 at Leicester, seemingly dogmatically, before switching to 4-2-3-1 with Chelsea. Unleashed as a No 10, Palmer had been unstoppable until he encountered Jones: the man Slot gave what he branded an “almost impossible” task both managed to subdue Palmer and score himself.
Palmer normally represents Chelsea’s greatest strength, a No 10 of extraordinary productivity. Playing with a front four in defining away games is a way of accommodating some of Maresca’s host of wingers – though even with Pedro Neto replacing Jadon Sancho at half-time, Joao Felix still went unused – but can feel risky in defining away games. The managers who defined the recent Chelsea, in Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, may have had more players behind the ball.
If a rationale behind the recruitment of expensive defensive midfielders was that they had greater capabilities, Chelsea felt undermanned off the ball with a mere two on the Anfield pitch. Perhaps Maresca could plot a more defensive path. That may not be necessary to justify Slot’s prediction – Aston Villa finished fourth despite conceding 61 times last season – but if Maresca has made Chelsea duller off the pitch, rendering them less of a soap opera with his competence, now the task is to make them duller on it.