Champions beaten at the Bridge
Chelsea 3 Liverpool 1, 4th May 2025
CHELSEA 3 (Fernández 3, Quansah (own goal 56), Palmer 90+6)
LIVERPOOL 1 (van Dijk 85)
If Enzo Fernández’s third minute goal was as “beautiful” as Gary Neville described it on Sky TV co-commentary (and it was), then surely Jarell Quansah’s unlucky own goal early in the second half was as ugly and representative of the game that surrounded it and whilst Cole Palmer’s last minute goal from the penalty spot a just reward for a “Man of the Match” display just a tick ahead of the Reds only real performer today Cody Gakpo, it mattered not a jot to the continuing celebrations of the Reds in the Away End as songs of triumph were sung, “Champions” repeatedly boomed out to remind their hosts who were top dogs again in England’s Premier League, and whilst Chelsea’s deserved victory will almost certainly see them returning to the Champions League next season, this was another inconsequential defeat for Arne Slot’s Champions from Liverpool.
Arne Slot’s Champions from Liverpool — What a pleasing sentence that is to write!
And only 3 weeks until it becomes a trophy lifting reality at Anfield.
According to the dreaded statisticians, there were a combined 9 shots on target this afternoon but the vast, vast majority of these came in a flurry in the final 20 minutes of a tepid game that meant rather more to the Londoners of Chelsea than the soon to be crowned Champions of England. In 6 late second half minutes leading up to Virgil van Dijk’s consolation goal for the Reds (and only their second effort on target all afternoon and fully 75 minutes after Cody Gakpo had his 10th minute shot saved by Blues goalkeeper Robert Sánchez) his opposite number Alisson Becker denied both Jadon Sancho and Cole Palmer with smart close-in saves and when Palmer led the defence in front of him a merry dance on 80 minutes and the Reds goalkeeper beaten, his far post came to his rescue. Deduct Chelsea’s 3 goals and you have one further shot on target that Ali presumably had to save but I didn’t notice as this wasn’t much of a game for or indeed from the much changed Champions aside from both Darwin Núñez (68 minutes) and Mo Salah (77 minutes) heading wide when they should have scored. Cody Gakpo was far and away the Reds best player but in a team clearly coasting in celebratory mode with Mo Salah almost as anonymous as the invisible Diogo Jota up front and Wataru Endō the only standout in a completely new and unfamiliar midfield lineup missing the triumvirate of Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai. Federico Chiesa got some late game minutes and thus now qualifies for a Premier League winners medal, and that was all she wrote from this den of iniquity from the Kings Road in old London town.
Well not quite!
Whilst losing to my son at cards (he whitewashed me in Game 2 on his way to a 3–2 victory at “Uno”) I still joined in with the songs of triumph emanating from the Away End as “A Liverbird Upon My Chest”, “Campione” and the especially pleasing “Ee Aye Addio, We’ve Won The League” drifted loud and proud and regularly from the travelling Kop. The Chelsea fans may have booed their team for rightly providing a guard of honour for the Champions but that’s Chelsea fans for you and money can’t buy you love or class. Arsenal next and where once they dreamed of a title decider akin to their late night triumph on a sweltering May night in 1989 they will now have to bear witness to a coronation of the Champions and perhaps provide a guard of honour of their own. As I have bitter distaste for all things Arsenal, how sweet next Sunday will be, regardless of the result!
All together now…
“We’ve Won The League
We’ve Won The League
Ee Aye Addio, We’ve Won The League”
Arne’s Afterword
“Nothing good comes from losing a game of football, but if I have to take the positives there were definitely a few positives. Dominating ball possession at Stamford Bridge is not what many teams do over here because Chelsea are so comfortable with the ball as well. Being 2–0 down, don’t give up, try to fight ourselves back into the game — and that’s what we did. Then when we scored for 2–1 I was like, ‘Let’s see if there’s something in it…’ but I don’t think there was a moment where we were close to scoring a goal. In the end, a correct penalty being given and Chelsea won it 3–1. Maybe the opposite from the home game where they dominated possession and we won. Now it was the opposite”.
On the booing from Chelsea supporters during the guard of honour…
“I didn’t hear it, to be honest. I only heard our fans during almost the whole game. I just heard that they couldn’t come here on trains, so they had to go by car. But they were on time and they were loud throughout the whole game. I haven’t heard anyone booing — I only heard our fans singing”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books too. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon
Great read, Stephen. Even as a UTD fan, I’ve got to admit that I loved the passion and humour in this.
That “Arne Slot’s Champions” line made me smile (through gritted teeth, of course).
Btw I also wanted to share with you a short story I wrote whose plot revolves around soccer and community.
I sent the link to your inbox, when you have some time you can give it a read.
North American here. I think I can relate to the bit about Chelsea supporters being loud. Back in the day, I went to London once and heard that Arsenal was about to play Leeds at Highbury—not far from the train line at Piccadilly, and that pub in what used to be the Regent Palace Hotel. So I went. It was great. But the play was awful—even by lowly North American standards. That was quite shocking, really. But the thing I remember most about that match is how loud the Leeds fans were. I’d never seen—or heard—anything like it in my life. They were definitely louder than the home teams' fans, way louder. But maybe that was because Arsenal got their asses handed to them that day. As I recall, the score was 4-1.