There’s nothing to pine for at Chelsea – while Liverpool choke on their memories | Chelsea

It was, if nothing else, the right tribute. Not for Chelsea’s gamers the outsized leaving card or the valedictory video message. No, what higher approach of celebrating the legacy of their outgoing coach Graham Potter than by creating loads of probabilities after which lacking them in more and more comedic circumstances? Expected objectives: Chelsea 2.19-0.20 Liverpool. Actual objectives: Chelsea 0-0 Liverpool. Dearest Graham. Always in our hearts.

Thing is, Potter has gone and brought his oil diffuser and self‑assist books with him. Who carries the can now? Certainly it might be laborious to apportion an excessive amount of accountability to Bruno Saltor, the previous Brighton right-back positioned in short-term cost. There have been some tales floating round this week that Potter was so obscure to a few of his gamers that that they had to look him up on the web. Although we are able to at least assume they discovered one thing, which is greater than will be mentioned for Bruno: the kind of man you attempt to Google and fail.

But in one other sense the sight of this assemblage of star footballers taking to the sector with out a full‑time coach – flying solo, going commando – felt surprisingly excellent. At its most skeletal ideas, the ideology of Todd Boehly has at all times been based mostly on entertainers: purchase them in, stack them excessive, give them no matter they need. Did the Travelling Wilburys want a coach? Did the X-Men want a coach? Of course not. (Professor X was, if something, extra of a director-of-football kind.) And so maybe this was merely Boehly fundamentalism taken to its purest, most rational conclusion.

The curious factor was that for massive elements it labored. Chelsea have been the higher workforce in each halves, trying harmful on the break and protecting Liverpool at arm’s size at all occasions. Enzo Fernández once more confirmed why Chelsea have been prepared to raid the vault to purchase him, shifting the ball precisely however extra importantly ahead, and sometimes with only one contact. Contrast him with, say, Jordan Henderson, who on gathering the ball today appears to swivel it round in a painfully gradual circle that brings to thoughts a Vauxhall Astra making an attempt to do a handbrake flip.

João Félix was an absolute pleasure to watch, all feathers and ribbons and wisps of sunshine, an actual Diptyque candle of a participant. Up entrance, in the meantime, Kai Havertz impressed together with his business and motion with out ever actually trying like he was going to rating. It’s not likely his fault a lot as a permanent curiosity of this Chelsea facet, a squad with each sort of attacking participant besides crucial. How do you spend £600m on new gamers and overlook to purchase a goalscorer?

And in some ways this can be a query that may outline the kind of membership Chelsea needs to be. You can construct your striker-less paradise, a mesmerising net of younger butterfly forwards all rotating and meshing with one another. You can try this. But you then’re additionally going to want a robust elite coach and loads of time, as a result of these things is ridiculously laborious to get proper. Alternatively, if you happen to’re going to maintain firing your coaches and constructing a brand new blueprint each 9 months, you’re most likely going to want an enormous No 9. Indeed, the Chelsea of Roman Abramovich by no means received a league title with out one.

But quick consideration spans have their benefits in addition to their disadvantages. You solely have to look at the chewed, weathered, end-of-the-pier really feel to Liverpool at the second: the sense of shutters coming down, home windows being boarded up, decay and loss. Chelsea, in contrast, are largely immune to these sensations as a result of they by no means actually construct something as lasting as an period within the first place. Everything is revival, revolution, upheaval. There’s nothing to mourn or get nostalgic for. The Potter interregnum will quickly disappear into the fossil file of historical past, together with the Sarri season and the Benítez interruption. On to the following factor. The story of Liverpool performs on film reels. The story of Chelsea performs on Instagram Reels.

And so maybe, league desk however, you’d really again Chelsea to choose themselves up faster than Liverpool. There remains to be a dysfunction right here, and a dysfunction that goes far deeper than one bearded coach. But even in its dysfunction you possibly can see the way it may immediately work. This is the sort of squad that might click on into gear extraordinarily shortly. You can see Félix or Mykhailo Mudryk going on an unstoppable run. You can see Enzo banging in a final‑minute winner from 30 yards. You may even, nearly, glimpse the planetary alignment that takes this field of costly misplaced toys all the way in which to the Champions League remaining.

Liverpool, useless to say, don’t do issues like this any extra. There is a course of to be revered, a protocol to be adopted, Financial Fair Play guidelines to obey and a legacy to be honoured. Perhaps that is how you find yourself beginning a sport with Joe Gomez at right-back and ending it with a mixed midfield age of 98 years. Right now, it’s Chelsea who want some stability and Liverpool who want a detonation. Instead, it seems like each are going to get precisely the other.