Chelsea have real belief in top-five fight as much-changed Liverpool lack intensity after title party | OneFootball

Champions far from full strength with trophy in the bag, but biggest win of season still gives Blues enormous confidence with crucial fixtures to come

For a brief moment just before Christmas you wondered whether this fixture, between what were then the country’s two form teams and Premier League pacesetters, might prove a title decider.

Much has changed since then, and a gap of 22 points opened up by the time of kick-off between the Liverpool side just crowned champions of England and a Chelsea one hunting a route into the top five.

With them, the Blues ensured they will finish the weekend still in fifth and go to Newcastle next Sunday trailing Eddie Howe’s side only on goals scored.

How much difference a clear chasm in motivation made to the result we can only guess, but certainly Chelsea were the hungrier, sharper team, racing into the lead through Enzo Fernandez inside three minutes.

Virgil van Dijk’s header set up a nervy finish, after Jarell Quansah’s own goal had made it two, but Cole Palmer’s stoppage-time penalty, ending an 18-game goal drought, confirmed a perfect Chelsea afternoon.

Liverpool showed six changes from the lineup that had clinched the title by scoring five against Tottenham last weekend, including the break-up of their entire first-choice midfield, with fulcrum Ryan Gravenberch not even in the squad.

But this was still, on paper, a good team. It was still spearheaded by the Footballer of the Year-elect in Mohamed Salah and still contained the division’s outstanding goalkeeper and centre-back. It was still the land’s champion team, still the one 15 points clear at the top of the league.

And for Chelsea and Enzo Maresca, that is significant. Since the turn of the year, they have hung onto their position in the race for the Champions League almost exclusively by dispatching the league’s fodder.

This was only their second victory against a top-half side since early December; the other came against Fulham, who have since slipped to 11th.

While a series of wins in must-wins, as well as those racked up in the Conference League, have steadily rebuilt the confidence that eroded during a prolonged mid-season slump, this was the kind of result that fosters genuine belief.

With pivotal away trips to Newcastle and Nottingham Forest - the three will be level on points in fourth, fifth and sixth if Forest beat Crystal Palace on Monday night - to come, they will need every bit of that.

And okay, Liverpool really weren’t at it. If the 11 starters wore a mask of seriousness then a truer reflection of a squad in post-exam mode came from the bench.

Seldom can any set of substitutes have spent quite so much of a first half stretching, this lot parking up on the grass in front of the away end and going through a sort of yoga class. At one stage, a beaming Ibrahima Konate found himself all but leading the chants.

But Chelsea still had to recognise the opportunity and - more importantly - take it. Maresca had pointed to consistency across the course of a season as the big difference between these sides, but this was his team seizing a moment.

If there was to be a vulnerability in this Liverpool side it was always likely to be one of intensity, and always likely to surface early.

After delivering the customary guard of honour, Chelsea needed a fast start and found it, Palmer swivelling on a Curtis Jones slip in midfield, Pedro Neto roasting a sluggish Kostas Tsimikas and Fernandez arriving on time and unmarked, having run free through a second-string midfield.

It was such a contrast with the slow, hesitant football that has often drawn this crowd’s ire. The roar that greeted Fernandez’s finish was the loudest heard here in months.

It was usurped within hours, though, when Palmer steered his spot-kick beyond Alisson’s dive and sealed the win.