Liverpool surrendered their spot at the Premier League summit to Arsenal, going into the international break after they were beaten 2-1 by Chelsea at the death, marking their fourth successive league defeat in London.
Liverpool have been far from convincing in their title defence, and their flaws were once again exposed in the opening stages at Stamford Bridge.
Some weak midfield play from the Reds afforded Moises Caicedo, a man who was tantalisingly close to signing for them before joining Chelsea, the freedom of West London outside the penalty area, and he made them pay in brutal fashion as he unleashed an absolute rasper from 25 yards into the top corner.
Arne Slot’s men almost found an instant response through Dominik Szoboszlai, but after some neat wing play from Cody Gakpo laid the ball on a plate for the unmarked Hungarian, a heroic Benoit Badiashile block denied what looked to be a certain goal.
Chelsea’s dogged off-the-ball work was frustrating the Reds, who impressed in flashes, but were uncharacteristically wasteful in the final third, as Milos Kerkez evidenced when he simply had to square the ball to give Mo Salah a tap-in inside the six-yard box, and somehow found Marc Cucurella with his pass.
In truth, the visitors could probably count themselves a little fortunate to go into the break just a goal behind, as five minutes before half-time, Alejandro Garnacho’s effort from the edge of the area bounced away off the outside of the post.
Slot had seen enough and decided to introduce Florian Wirtz at the break to give his side some fresh attacking impetus.
His decision almost paid immediate dividends when Wirtz found Salah inside the area within 20 seconds of the restart, but the Egyptian could only skew a right-footed effort wide of the post.
Shortly after the hour mark, though, Liverpool finally broke Chelsea’s resistance.
Szoboszlai’s delivery was brought down well by Alexander Isak, but before Liverpool’s £125m-man could get a shot off, Gakpo had pounced and thundered into the back of the net to level the scores.
Chelsea losing their two starting centre-backs to injury handed the initiative to Liverpool in the closing stages, but it was the Blues who actually looked the likelier to take all three points.
Jamie Gittens, Caicedo and Estevao all forced Giorgi Mamardashvili into smart stops in the final 10 minutes, but those stops proved to be temporary reprieves.
The Blues kept probing until the very end, and their endeavour yielded the ultimate reward in stoppage time when Estevao slid in at the far post to turn home Cucurella’s delivery and inflict a stoppage-time defeat on Liverpool for the second weekend running after they produced so many late-late shows themselves at the start of the campaign.
Flashscore Man of the Match: Moises Caicedo (Chelsea)
