Unleash the fastidiously metered ticker-tape gun. Crack out the cautiously decanted champagne. This can be a sport that may maybe be remembered above all for Enzo's Run.
With 95 minutes on the clock, as Chelsea's 18-year-old substitute Estêvão Willian scored the successful purpose even earlier than the shared consumption of air round Stamford Bridge had been reworked right into a barrelling roar, Enzo Maresca was off, sprinting down his touchline at astonishing velocity, and displaying classical type, fingers carving the air, knees excessive, like a small, bald track-suited Allan Wells, then leaping together with his gamers into the group.
Maresca had been weirdly animated all sport, on the market in full-figure hugging Galactic Jade membership nylons and sculpted quilted coat, bristly, bald, even fairly twinkly, like an ageing Jedi on his approach to the health club. As Chelsea took the lead within the first half he even tried to conduct the group, demanding extra noise, extra warmth, albeit with one thing oddly accusatory in his gestures.
Finally Maresca returned from the mosh pit. He was despatched off for his touchline run, an act of solely alien positional rebellion from essentially the most deathly of systems-managers. He disappeared, changed by a generic baldy-beardy man from his steady of back-ups, and didn't seem once more on the finish. Maybe the rumours are true and Maresca simply stored working, out of the bottom and down the Fulham Street, passing Whitechapel by the point the sprinklers got here on.
However then, this was momentous sport in some ways. Primarily for Liverpool. Maybe there might be reduction of types. Both means the rabbits which have been rustling within the tree line for the previous six weeks have lastly come gambolling out into the paddock. Liverpool have misplaced three video games in a row, two on successive league weekends. They aren't, repeat not, high of the desk.
This needed to occur a while. It has been over a 12 months now, the morning of 24 September 2024, for the reason that final time final Arne Slot's staff weren't a minimum of degree on factors on the high. And by the tip a 2-1 defeat right here felt like a complete standing report on this staff, its apparent strengths and its apparent flaws, the actual fact it appears each week now to be enjoying each its opponents and the glitches and snags in its personal system.
Is that this a disaster? Enjoying badly and successful in late season is a factor. Enjoying badly and successful in early season. Properly, then you definitely're simply enjoying badly. But when it's a disaster it's fairly a sexy one, a staff that's nonetheless chugging alongside within the center lane whilst Slot works furiously underneath the bonnet. What is going to trouble Slot is the best way opposition managers are taking it in turns to select at these holes, to work him out just a little prematurely, as Oliver Glasner did final weekend, and as Maresca did right here.
Stamford Bridge had been chilly, gray and breezy at kick-off, the type of day that appears all the time to be making an attempt to get inside your shirt or up your sleeve. Maresca's preliminary success got here from enjoying Malo Gusto in midfield, making a suffocating central block.
Liverpool had been squeezed and hurried. Each time Alexis Mac Allister took the ball in deep areas Gusto was throughout him, man-marking the fulcrum, choking Liverpool at supply.
With quarter-hour gone neither staff had created an opportunity. Then one thing out of the field occurred. Moisés Caicedo discovered time and area on the ball, empty grass forward of him. He took two extra steps. Nonetheless nothing. Virgil van Dijk ran to his left apparently reacting to some swarming sense of hazard. Presumably Van Dijk hasn't watched Chelsea a lot. Nevertheless it was sufficient. Caicedo had had time to set himself and shoot proper to left into the highest nook, a splendidly pure strike, nonetheless rising because it clanged the steel strut that holds the online.
After that the system continued to work in the identical means. Liverpool had two photographs by half-time, none on the right track. You need to know what actually will get to Maresca, what fills his legs with dynamite? Elite stifling. Excessive-end interruption. And Chelsea did it right here.
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If that first half showcased Maresca's skill to set these traps the place there isn't any urgency to drive the sport ahead, it additionally confirmed why Liverpool signed Florian Wirtz. Slot had spoken earlier than this sport concerning the want for a distinct type of midfielder. Wirtz got here on on the break and nearly instantly discovered Mohamed Salah with a beautiful spinning contact. Salah fired vast, weirdly, as he did usually right here, so blunt in his taking pictures you half anticipated to look down and spot he was enjoying in flippers.
Liverpool had been higher. Wirtz had a very good spell. Chelsea went into random participant generator mode, blue shirts hobbling off to the recycling plant to be damaged down into components and despatched out once more as João Philly-Cheese-Steak, promising non-specific defensive utility defend. Cody Gakpo received the equaliser. Chelsea got here on robust on the finish. Reece James was supreme, in full defensive warrior mode.
And Chelsea deserved to win total. Liverpool appeared muddled, albeit nonetheless groaning with expertise and trapped vitality. It's absolutely good for the league Liverpool will not be high of the desk on this state, that it isn't attainable to easily restock your attacking silos and march on seamlessly, that the reactions of your opponents are extra nuanced.
The query stays. Are they now in disaster? Once more, not the worst type. There's a large depth of expertise to be explored. However there are additionally creaking components. Proper-back is an issue. Proper-back refers ache into the midfield. Wirtz has affected the attacking stability, additionally the area behind him. This is sort of a mixture boiler the place a buildup of flange in your dredge capacitor is inflicting overheated trex to enter the z-bend by way of the shuffle valve.
Individually, and courting again to final season, Salah has dropped off a cliff. He was fouled quite a bit right here, bounced up, but in addition couldn't assert his personal vitality. He has three objectives in 21 video games within the league from open play. He isn't the issue. However he additionally isn't the answer proper now.
This isn't fairly a disaster. Nevertheless it is a chance for Arsenal, for the remainder of the sphere. And for Slot too, to seek out solutions to the tactical misfires, to repair this staff on the hoof. Liverpool are a rejig away from wanting like a really potent attacking staff, if not maybe a very strong one. It feels a minimum of, as we had into anther two-week worldwide embalmment, as if the league is actually beginning in earnest.
