Manchester City are winning the title this season because Pep Guardiola, but whether he stays or goes in the summer, Chelsea are the team to break the Citizens’ Premier League stranglehold.
“I don’t think we outplayed Chelsea, we certainly didn’t. I think they were more dominant than us with the ball. In an ideal world I would have seen us dominate the complete game like we did in so many other games.”
Liverpool beat Chelsea on Sunday and few would disagree that they deserved the victory. But as Arne Slot concedes, it was Chelsea – at Anfield – who dictated the pace of the game. And while it was undoubtedly a big moment for Liverpool, passing their first real test under the new manager, it also felt like a positive defeat for Chelsea.
That would have been an unthinkable oxymoron for Chelsea and their fans two years ago. The ethos under Roman Abramovich, established by Jose Mourinho and perpetuated by the successful managers who came after him, was one of winning at all costs. All of the Abramovich coaches – the winners and the losers – at some point failed to bear the load of that expectation.
Todd Boehly and Clearlake said they would bring an end to the hire ’em fire ’em culture at Stamford Bridge, a claim which became one of many sticks to beat them with in their first two seasons in charge. But it now feels like they’ve got their man in Enzo Maresca.
“I’m hoping in the future, hopefully in the near future, that when we play a game like this we are more dominant than we were against Chelsea. But that probably says a lot about Chelsea as well.”
It certainly does. These are two teams set up to monopolise possession and, as Slot says, dominate the game. Liverpool were unable to do that at home on the back of six wins from seven in the Premier League with far more experienced and – many would say – superior players in their first XI.
Of course it takes time for a new coach to get their ideas across and it would be unreasonable to expect Liverpool to be the finished product, but Enzo Maresca is in exactly the same position and apparently quite a bit further along in his process.
Slot can point to the lack of summer investment as an excuse – he doesn’t have any of His Players – and may argue that it’s more difficult to mould the Liverpool team given their deeply held investment in the ways of his predecessor.
Slot’s certainly not done a bad job of implementing his style, but not to the same extent as Maresca, who may have a more pliable squad but has got them all singing from the same hymn sheet in impressive time. As he said himself two weeks ago, Chelsea are “further ahead” in the process than almost anyone would have thought at this stage of the season.
“A lot of people in England were making fun of Chelsea earlier in the season for investing so much money and bringing in all these players that weren’t in the squad but in my opinion they have done really well in the last two of three years bringing so many talented players in.”
We made fun because it was an alien concept. No team has spent anywhere close to £1bn on potential before and up until the final few months of Pochettino’s stay, in many cases that potential was unfulfilled.
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Cole Palmer is the exception having been brilliant since day dot but the progress of Noni Madueke, Nicolas Jackson and Moises Caicedo has continued and intensified under Maresca, who’s also getting a tune out of Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia, who looks like another One That Got Away from Manchester City. There are now fewer doubts that others will follow suit.
“They have such a strong squad with such a good manager that they will be up there in the coming years. That is my opinion, let’s see if I am right.”
There’s some way to go. The downside of having a relatively settled starting XI is that we’re yet to see the best of the extraordinary talent Chelsea have on the bench. Left-back is an issue, as is the goalkeeper, and because they’re all so young and inexperienced, mistakes will be made in the short term, as they were against Liverpool.
But there’s a clear pathway to success now for Chelsea, who have a good manager and a group of excellent young players who are apparently eager to learn, quick to take on messages and will grow together; we have little doubt that they will be challenging for the Premier League in the not-too-distant future.
Their ascent may be perfectly timed. The Premier League could be Pep Guardiola-less next season, by which point Maresca will have had a year to hone his style and mould his players, whose youth and talent provides a platform for an accelerated rise to surpass the steady progress of another Guardiola disciple at Arsenal.
It’s hard to see past Manchester City if Guardiola extends his contract, but the most exciting thing by far for Chelsea fans is that this project is very much in its infancy; we don’t know the height of the ceiling for Maresca or this group of players.
What we do know is that they’re on the right track, which we (or rather I) predict will lead them to end Manchester City’s dominance and be the next team to win the Premier League title.
