Chelsea earned a hard-fought 3-1 win over newly crowned Premier League champions Liverpool on Sunday at Stamford Bridge to boost their Champions League qualification hopes.
The Blues produced an impressive performance to grab the maximum points against the leaders, who made six changes to the team that defeated Tottenham 4-1 to emerge champions last Sunday.
Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea took the lead in the third minute through Enzo Maresca, who finished past Alisson in the box from Pedro Neto’s cross.
A few minutes into the second half, Jarell Quansah scored an own goal to increase Chelsea’s lead.
Mohammed Salah, and Darwin Nunez both missed good chances to reduce the deficit for Liverpool.
Virgil Van Dijk scored a glancing header in the 85th minute to make it 2-1.
Cole Palmer ended his 18-match drought from the spot in the 96th minute after Moises Caicedo was fouled by Quansah.
The English midfielder was delighted to end his goal drought while playing down the criticisms on social media.
He said: “It gives me more fight to do well not just for myself, but for my team.
“Social media nowadays is full of idiots, the trolls and whatever. I don’t pay any attention to that. To score today, I’m happy, but I’ve got to keep improving and try to reach new levels.
“If you’re getting chances and not scoring… you’re letting your team down at the end of the day. I feel like I’m mentally strong anyway so whatever people say, it doesn’t bother me. I’ve had it all the time growing up.
“I feel pride in helping the team and if I’m not doing that, I’m not happy. Today, I felt like myself. I felt confident, I was trying things, first time passes, playing forward, playing free and when you have him [Moises Caicedo] next to you, it’s a dream.”
Chelsea coach Enzo Maresca was delighted for Palmer who scored his 15th Premier League goal of the season.
He said: “Probably from the outside but we saw Cole day-by-day on the training ground and he is exactly the same way, scoring goals and happy. Enjoying the session.
“For sure, when he is not scoring goals he is not happy and the reason why is because he probably wants to help the team and the club to reach something important.”
Maresca was also full of praise for Romeo Lavia, who impressed for Chelsea in the encounter.
He said: “You can see that we are a better team with Romeo. Unfortunately, he has been injured for most of the season. Probably in this moment he has been the difference between us and many clubs because we had many important players for us that have been injured. Romeo is one of them. Wes Fofana is another one.
“We had Nico [Jackson] for two months [out]. Romeo showed again today how important he is for the team and how good he is.”
Meanwhile, Liverpool coach, Arne Slot said Liverpool’s levels did not drop after winning the league.
He said: “That we will never know, but I think what we saw today was a lot of things we’ve seen throughout the whole season – us playing through the high press of the opponent so many times, so many moments that we arrived in the final third.
“But I also saw us defending today where the last percentage was not of a normal standard, and in the final third, we come there so many times, normally we are able to create more chances.
“So that could mean two things: either Chelsea did well in both boxes, which they did, but I think it tells us also a little bit about us.
“In general, a good performance, but the final percentages weren’t there to win.”
The victory moved Chelsea three points clear of sixth-placed Nottingham Forest with three matches to go in the Champions League race.
Up next for the blues in the Premier League is a clash against Newcastle United at St James’ Park next Sunday.
