Liverpool's win over Chelsea only further separates the standards of both teams

LIVERPOOL, England — Mauricio Pochettino could have been forgiven for displaying a rueful smile when Darwin Núñez hit the woodwork for the fourth time during Liverpool‘s 4-1 win against Chelsea at Anfield. After all, that kind of frustrating inadequacy is usually a trait of his underperforming Chelsea players.

Pochettino still had plenty of excuses to shake his head at his team, whether it was the defensive mistakes of Thiago Silva, Ben Chilwell, or Benoit Badiashile, the wayward finishing of Mykhailo Mudryk, or Christopher Nkunku‘s inability to stay onside. Chelsea even had good reason to question the competence of referee Paul Tierney and his VAR officials following the failure to award penalties after fouls by Virgil van Dijk on Conor Gallagher and Nkunku.

– Stream on ESPN+: LaLiga, Bundesliga & more (U.S.)

But even though Núñez became the first player since records began to hit the post or crossbar four times in a Premier League game — the Uruguay forward hit the post with a first-half penalty — Chelsea were still blown away by a rampant Liverpool side that maintained a five-point lead over champions Manchester City at the top of the table.

That’s often the difference between teams at the top and those who are miles off the pace. The top teams overcome setbacks and find a way to win, as Liverpool did emphatically, but teams like Chelsea, who are 20 points behind Liverpool in 10th position, crumble as soon as things start to go against them. These two sides are due to meet again on Feb. 25 in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley, but Chelsea provided little evidence that they will deny Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp the first trophy in a possible quadruple next month before he steps down from his role at the end of the season.

Chelsea’s problem, and therefore Pochettino’s, is that they have too many young, inexperienced, and naïve players in the team for them to harbour any real hope of success in the short and medium term. Liverpool have one of those in Núñez, the 24-year-old club record £85 million signing from Benfica, but Klopp has the advantage of being able to surround him with players who have been there and done it. If Núñez is misfiring, there are plenty of others throughout the team who can step up and minimise the downside of the striker missing so many chances.

Robbie Fowler, Liverpool’s all-time leading Premier League scorer with 163 goals, summed up the Núñez enigma during the game in his role as a TNT Sports pundit.

“There comes a point when you can’t be classed as a raw player,” Fowler said. “I think Núñez will score goals and will be a handful, but I think there comes a point where he will need to be more clinical.”

While Klopp can rely on Diogo Jota and Luis Díaz to score the goals in the absence of the injured Mohamed Salah — both scored in this game — Liverpool can withstand Núñez’s shortcomings.

But Pochettino has no such luxury. At 39, Silva possesses huge experience, but the former Paris Saint-Germain defender no longer has the legs to do the job he needs to do at the heart of Chelsea’s defence. As for Raheem Sterling, the 29-year-old has a glittering past, but he lacks the leadership skills expected of a player with such experience.

Beyond those two, however, Pochettino simply has players who are still trying to live up to their potential, including the 26-year-old Nkunku. The club has invested almost £1 billion in new players since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital takeover in May 2022, but Pochettino — Chelsea’s fourth permanent manager in that period – only sees players in need of wise old heads around them. When Klopp added the likes of Cody Gakpo, Dominik Szoboszlai, and Alexis Mac Allister to his squad during the past 12 months, they were immediately surrounded by trophy-winning knowledge and experience and all have thrived at Anfield.

At Chelsea, so many promising young players have seen their careers stall because they haven’t benefited from the experience around them. There is clearly an exciting player in Mudryk, but will we ever see it at Chelsea? The same question applies to Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo. Unfortunately, with the three players costing over £300m between them, their struggles are intensified by their inflated transfer fees. Pochettino did little to hide his frustration after the game.

“It’s so clear they were much better than us,” he said. “We lost every single duel. Every time we recovered the ball after one or two touches we lost it.

“We were not good enough. We need to learn in this kind of game, against a team that is top and always challenging for trophies. We know we need to push ourselves. We need to be more confident in ourselves.”

While Chelsea continue to drift, Liverpool march on and a win at Arsenal on Sunday will whittle the title race down to a two-way battle with City.

“The story of the game is the story of the game, but it could have been different if we didn’t start as we did,” Klopp said after his 200th Premier League win as Liverpool manager. “I’m super happy with the performance.

“But the next game is coming in four days, which I didn’t think was possible, but the next one is massive. Arsenal.

“Let’s recover and go again.”