IT WAS EARLY during this sometimes sleepy Anfield afternoon that the Liverpool crowd cranked out an old favourite, telling Chelsea where to go while singing that they “have no history.”
The chant stretches back to the Mourinho/Benitez/shit on a stick days, when Chelsea’s wealth was building enormous success and a comparatively poor Liverpool sought some refuge in their priceless reputation.
But this was another Premier League game to show that, as the years have gone, Liverpool have done pretty well out of Chelsea’s spending.
Man of the match here was Curtis Jones, winning the penalty from which Mo Salah converted the opening goal before then knifing the ball in from close range for what proved to be the winner.
But there is an alternate timeline in which Chelsea last year finally decided they had not yet maxed out their credit limit and stood down from the signings of Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia, clearing a path for them to join Liverpool and so further stifle the development of Jones.
Instead, Todd Boehly kept spending the dollars he wasn’t using to light his cigars and time wheeled forward to arrive at this point, a 2-1 win that Liverpool probably deserved but after which Chelsea can feel encouraged.
This timeline is not a neat parable of profligacy. While Caicedo had a nightmare debut season at Chelsea and injury meant Lavia didn’t have one at all, today they looked like a solid platform on which Chelsea can park their lurid and myriad trophy attackers.
Lavia was hooked after 53 minutes as he builds up fitness but he is delightfully nimble; press resistant at a time the game has never better prized that quality. Caicedo, meanwhile, scuttled around and broke up possession while looking better with the ball, constantly popping up in space between Liverpool’s midfielders. It was from one such instance that he slid the ball through for Nicolas Jackson to equalise early in the second half.
Less than 90 seconds later, though, Jones won the game for Liverpool. Jones has not been in Arne Slot’s first-choice midfield trio thus far this season, but here he started ahead of Alexis Mac Allister, who returned from Argentina with an illness. He put the game on notice from the early minutes, when he swivelled and slalomed away from Cole Palmer in delightfully fluid style.
Jones was fluid where his team-mates were not. The more we learn about the differences between Klopp and Slot, the more it seems to be one of volume, in both senses of the word. On these primetime slots, Klopp’s side would crank up the noise and then keep it there, with waves of concussive attacks. Slot’s side are different: they don’t press with the same wild intensity and they pick more judiciously their moments to attack. Scoring 76 seconds after losing their lead is a kind of ballad to efficiency.
For all of Jones’ flourishes, the game’s conductor was, yet again, Mohamed Salah. He is a testament to the fact Chelsea’s outrageous waste didn’t begin with Bohely. It’s still jarring to think that the two dominant players in English football from 2016 at least to 2022 – if not to today – have been Salah and Kevin de Bruyne, both of whom were sold by Chelsea.
De Bruyne has been his side’s chief creator while chipping in with vital goals; Salah has been Liverpool’s chief goalscorer while offering creativity too.
Salah’s evolution in recent seasons has been remarkable: he is still Liverpool’s main goalscorer but now he is their playmaker too. He was playing the Cole Palmer role before Cole Palmer.
Jones won the penalty for the first goal but Salah created it, shrugging off Malo Gusto and driving towards the box before playing a pass that broke kindly enough for Jones to be upended by Levi Colwill. He then created Jones’ winner with his trademark, inswinging cross from the right wing.
He is also a kind of target man for Slot’s team, whose entire system is geared to isolating wingers against full-backs. Sometimes they can play intricate passes to draw an opponent’s press and then release the forwards, but sometimes they have to play like they did today, and Get It Launched to Mo.
Salah’s strength is outrageous: defenders run into the back of him like Wile E.Coyote going splat on dummy walls.
So while this game can be read as another chicken coming home to roost in punishment for Chelsea’s age of excess, they are clearly becoming a serious team. They still have their faults – their defenders are error prone and their goalkeeper treats the ball at his feet like he has just been passed a grenade – Enzo Maresca has managed to streamline his crazy inheritance. In asking left-back Malo Gusto to tuck in-field as a kind of attacking midfielder, Maresca consistently outnumbered Liverpool in midfield: this was the genesis of Chelsea’s goal and why the away side had 57% of the ball.
Chelsea are finally beginning to rise to meet expectation, but they continue to be haunted by their many errors. So when Liverpool fans chant the name of Mohamed Salah, they are contradicting themselves: they are celebrating their favourite piece of Chelsea history.
