Liverpool suffered a third-successive loss in all competitions as Estêvão’s stoppage-time winner sealed a dramatic 2-1 win for Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, following an engaging Premier League encounter.
Having gone behind to Moisés Caicedo’s 14th-minute screamer, the Reds drew level through Cody Gakpo’s close-range finish 17 minutes into the second half.
Arne Slot’s side looked primed to go on and claim all three points, at that stage, but the hosts wrestled back an increasing degree of the initiative in the time that remained and struck decisively through the 18-year-old Brazilian’s first goal for the club in the fifth minute of added time.
Blues head coach Enzo Maresca was subsequently sent off, after receiving a second yellow card from referee Anthony Taylor for sprinting down the touchline to celebrate with his players.
The result rounded off a tough week for the Premier League champions, who fell to a 2-1 defeat courtesy of a stoppage-time concession for the second weekend running. Eddie Nketiah’s strike for Crystal Palace ended their 100% start in the league seven days earlier at Selhurst Park, prior to a 1-0 Champions League reversal at the hands of Galatasaray in Istanbul on Tuesday night.
Having sat five points clear at the top of the division after five rounds of fixtures, Slot’s team now head into the October international break in second place, a point behind leaders Arsenal.
The interlude may not come at a bad time for the Reds, who will be hoping to raise their levels when they return to action against rivals Manchester United at Anfield on 19th October, prior to a Champions League trip to Eintracht Frankfurt three days later.
Liverpool lacking game-management
A palpable absence of control and of the ability to knowingly navigate different phases of the game was, again, a prominent feature here for the Reds.
They were, so often, so good in those respects last season, as Slot’s first Anfield campaign, after taking the reins from Jürgen Klopp, produced a side that struck a superb balance – putting an additional emphasis on control while retaining their game-breaking firepower.
And there have been demonstrations of sound structural integrity within the early stages of this season, too. The home victories over Arsenal, Atlético Madrid and Everton – and the away win at Burnley, to a lesser extent – were displays, at least within considerable spells, where solidity and style were combined to great effect.
Much of the rest of 2025/26 so far, though, has seen a sense of imbalance and sub-par management of transitions define the Merseysiders’ on-field work.
Last season’s regular midfield of Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai started this one, as was the case against Everton a fortnight earlier. While largely aiding Slot’s side in terms of physical presence against the Blues strong midfield, the teams’ respective structures often saw the double-pivot of Gravenberch and Mac Allister outnumbered three-to-two, an issue that reared its head in both matches between the clubs last season.
Summer signing Florian Wirtz has often featured in the advanced midfield position that Szoboszlai – a different profile of No.10 – generally occupied to great effect last term, with the Hungary captain’s immense physical capacity a big contributor to the structural soundness that helped conserve Mohamed Salah’s energy and propel Liverpool to the title.
Finding a new midfield balance that platforms Wirtz’s evident class, while maintaining a good level of security, has unsurprisingly been one source of challenge so far this term.
Particularly within these consecutive losses, the relative absence of balance has also translated into somewhat clumsy management of different contexts within games.
As with their defeats in the preceding days, Saturday evening saw Liverpool start the game relatively well prior to conceding a momentum-shifting opener. A healthy tempo and crisp movement of possession saw them dictate the bulk of the opening minutes at Stamford Bridge before a couple of errors of judgement led to Caicedo’s undeniably brilliant strike giving the Blues the lead.
A loose exchange of passes between Virgil van Dijk and goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili, who came in for the injured Alisson Becker and delivered a largely strong showing on his Premier League debut, led to the concession of a throw-in deep in their own half. That then saw Chelsea – themselves world champions, after winning FIFA's newly expanded Club World Cup in the summer – capitalise on a midfield overload to work the ball neatly between the visitors’ lines and to the Ecuadorian midfielder via Malo Gusto.
He cleverly sidestepped his former Brighton and Hove Albion colleague Mac Allister, who started the game proactively on and off the ball but misjudged his advance here, strode into space, with centre-backs Ibrahima Konaté and Van Dijk preoccupied with runners, and fired a rasping 25-yard drive into the top-left corner.
The Blues had worked their way into the game in the minutes prior to that but, having got themselves ahead, gained an increasingly strong foothold from there. Moments of opportunity arose at either end but, prior to half-time, the Reds’ rarely looked close to re-establishing their early authority.
With Gravenberch’s switch to centre-back, after Konaté was withdrawn due to a possible quadricep issue, proving positively impactful in terms of his side’s progression of the ball, some momentum was regained in the minutes before Gakpo’s equaliser. That saw the Dutchman fire into the roof of the net from close range after Alexander Isak neatly diverted a deflected Szoboszlai cross into his path – and some of said momentum was retained in the following moments, but not sufficiently so.
As was the case after Federico Chiesa levelled the scores at Palace seven days earlier, the Merseysiders never truly grasped the nettle.
Several promising attacks were halted by poor decisions or execution and, steadily, that sloppiness, the contest’s openness and Maresca’s effective substitutes wrestled the initiative back in the hosts’ direction. Liverpool remained menacing, but Chelsea, despite being increasingly injury-hit, were knocking more noticeably on a door that looked far from watertight.
Mamardashvili had already been forced into three saves in quick succession and Enzo Fernández had headed against the post as the clock ticked down, before the West Londoners played their way through their opponents’ press and won the game in the fifth of the eight allotted added minutes, thanks to Estêvão converting Marc Cucurella’s superb low cross on the slide at the far-post.
Alexander Isak assist among hints of promise
Despite the ongoing sense of disjointedness around much of Liverpool’s current work, there were passages of play and flashes of quality that offered reason for optimism.
None more so, perhaps, than Isak’s contribution to the leveller. The Sweden striker, signed from Newcastle United on deadline day for a British record transfer fee reported to have been in the region of £125 million, continues to be eased in by Slot and co, following a pre-season in which he primarily trained individually.
He opened his goalscoring account for his new club in last month’s 2-1 Carabao Cup win over Southampton, but this was arguably his most eye-catching contribution in red yet.
With his back to goal and while being tightly marked by Reece James, the 26-year-old let Szoboszlai’s deflected and looping cross from the right come across his body before he nimbly used his right foot to drag it towards the six-yard box and into Gakpo’s path. The No.18 sharply found the roof of the net with his laces to the delight of the travelling supporters at that end of the ground.
Whether Isak intended to execute that action and see effectively tee-up his teammate in such a way is up for debate but, what it did demonstrate, was the deftness and intelligent attacking connectivity that Isak can offer in a variety of in-game situations.
An immense threat in his own right, the Reds new No.9 is also someone very capable of cleverly bringing others into play. That ability, alongside his others, ought to utilised to increasingly good effect in the coming months and weeks if, indeed, the necessary honing is done to boost the team’s efficiency.
There were other hints of promise, too. A sublime outside-of-the-boot cross from the right by Salah – who, again, saw his prominence and effectiveness limited – was headed just over the crossbar by Isak shortly before the interval.
Salah then sent a right-footed shot narrowly wide seconds after the restart when the newly introduced Wirtz classily pirouetted to flick Gakpo’s pass into the Egyptian’s path.
Coherence and understanding will need to continue to develop, but there are signs of the attacking verve that Liverpool will soon aim to platform more effectively.
Full-back uncertainties continue
An area of Slot’s side where question marks remain especially prominent is the full-back positions.
The relative continuity that Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson offered in those roles for the best part of eight seasons is no longer prominent, with Alexander-Arnold now at Real Madrid and Robertson generally second choice to Miloš Kerkez, recruited from AFC Bournemouth in the summer, so far this term.
Injuries to regular right-back options Jeremie Frimpong, himself signed from Bayer Leverkusen shortly after 2024/25’s conclusion, and Conor Bradley have seen Szoboszlai persistently occupy that position recently – often to good effect. Wataru Endō and Joe Gomez also had brief stints there on opening night against Bournemouth.
It feels safe to say that things are yet to settle in these regions, perhaps understandably.
Bradley and left-back Kerkez each had difficult moments in the first half, alongside some good contributions.
Bradley made way for Wirtz at half-time, with Szoboszlai dropping from the No.10 role to right-back, after the Northern Ireland international picked up a booking for impeding Alejandro Garnacho and was subsequently penalised for another challenge on the Argentine.
He’d been caught between two stools at times within the opening 45, as the system allowing Salah to invert to press a centre-back – and subsequently track back to an often limited extent – tends to lead to the right-back being tasked with jumping to press the opposing left-back when possession looks to be heading in their direction.
Misjudging that move, and having the ball, instead, played into the space left behind can – and did – cause problems. It’s a fine, at times imperfect, but generally necessary, balance. One of several components of the Reds’ set-up that may require honing in the near-future.
It tends to be a necessary move in order to apply an effective press, though. Lose such proactivity, and passivity can become a defining feature of a team and its press. Within a Liverpool side that is already being deemed passive in some quarters, stepping back in this regard comes across as additionally undesirable.
Such mistakes from Bradley arguably represented a necessary evil, with this in mind, although his consistent acquisition of yellow cards feels less palatable.
The 22-year-old now has three in the Premier League and two in the Champions League. Two more in the former competition over the course of the 12 games prior to the trip to Fulham in early January and he’ll serve a one-game suspension, and he’ll do likewise in the latter if he is booked again in any of the possible 10, or 12, matches that would come before yellows are wiped upon the conclusion of the quarter-finals.
Reducing the regularity with which he is cautioned is a virtual necessity if he is to play a regular part and contribute to the team improving its fortunes.
Kerkez, meanwhile, committed to, and lost, a first-half challenge in the Chelsea half that left his side exposed down the left flank and forced Konaté to divert a Pedro Neto cross behind for a corner after Van Dijk shepherded the Portuguese winger down the outside.
A well-timed run into the Chelsea box, nicely found by Gakpo, did see him get into an excellent position in behind the home defence in the 34th minute, but his low cross felt rushed, was a poor one and was cleared by Cucurella. The Hungary international has shown many times that he has the quality to execute effectively in such areas – a shot may have even been on here – but decision-making, and perhaps confidence, let him down this time.
It is easy to forget, given his great work during two seasons at Bournemouth, that he is still only 21 years of age. He has had moments of rashness and poor judgement in his fledgling Reds career, but also excelled within the aforementioned Arsenal and Everton victories, in particular. His physical and technical attributes are arguably yet to be channelled to a good extent, too.
There is rawness there, yes, but also plenty of promise. He may not have slotted in as seamlessly as some anticipated, but some patience will be necessary if improvements and better habits are to consistently kick in.
Robertson was largely superb after coming on for him in the 55th minute. The Scotland captain defended the far-post diligently on several occasions but was unable to do so for Estêvão’s winner, with body language suggesting the 31-year-old may have been nursing a knock of some kind in the build-up, which seemingly impeded his movement.
Another possible injury concern, alongside Konaté, although Slot didn’t mention any problem for Robertson in his post-match press conference. Keeping the vice-captain fit to support, and compete and rotate with, Kerkez, would be a big plus.
Progress – and perspective – required
This Liverpool side experiencing issues – which could be seen as teething problems – is, in many ways, unsurprising, given the turnover in the squad over the summer.
Chiesa was the only addition to the first-team playing staff in the summer of 2024, as Slot settled in to his new role. While questioned at the time, that approach proved shrewd in several respects, as the club seemingly benefitted from continuity in terms of playing staff combining neatly with freshness in the dugout, as they strode so impressively to the Premier League title.
The summer of 2025 always looked likely to be different, and so it proved. Six outfield players seemingly primed to be regular members of the first-team squad – Frimpong, Giovanni Leoni, who unfortunately picked up an ACL injury on his debut against Southampton, Kerkez, Wirtz, Hugo Ekitiké and Isak – were brought in, with the areas of continuity and freshness now flipped.
All have experienced challenges and offered reasons for excitement, with forward Ekitiké the one who has enjoyed the strongest start, in the view of many. The sense has been that Slot is looking to evolve the squad in a way that will enable a more free-flowing, incisive brand of football.
Some of the potential upsides of that intent have already been visible so far this season, particularly in the seven consecutive wins that preceded this drop-off in results. Each of those victories, though, bar Everton, required late goals. There was a, clearly justified, sense that such dramatic triumphs – while they reflect well on mentality – weren’t sustainable.
It is perhaps fair to say that the nature of the change in personnel and approach meant that, particularly in the short-to-medium term, the formulation of a side with a lower floor than last season – but a potentially higher ceiling – was always a relative likelihood.
We have, arguably, seen evidence of the former in the Merseysiders’ last three outings. That, understandably, is the primary point of focus, at present. However, there may also have been early evidence of the latter in the wins over Arsenal, Atlético and Everton. These things are difficult to quantify, especially with this season’s sample size still relatively small.
And there’s more to consider than the summer’s transfer business, of course. It is important to keep in mind that it was only in early July when the club and the wider football world was rocked by the news of the sudden death of forward Diogo Jota, alongside his brother André Silva, in a road traffic accident in northern Spain.
That, in particular, represents a source of perspective and grounding.
Those early wins mean Liverpool still have a good foundation to work from. Sitting a point off the top of the Premier League, and with three points from a possible six after two matches of the Champions League’s eight-game league phase, is far from a catastrophic position to be in in October.
An upturn in performance levels and results, and more indications of sustainable progress, will be required when club football returns later this month, but patience is also likely to remain a key ingredient. A lot does appear to be in need of improvement, chiefly the broader balance of the team, but there have also been reasons for encouragement in the season’s early stages.
Things are rarely as bad or as good as results and their surrounding noise make them feel, and some well-chosen tweaks in the coming weeks and months could bear that out.
