A red card, a blunder from Kepa, a missed penalty, it was too much for Chelsea, still in the process of breaking in, to compete with Liverpool who won as boss (2-0), at Stamford Bridge, Sunday, during the 2nd day of the Premier League.
With 6 points in two matches, Liverpool join their city's other club, Everton, but also Londoners Arsenal and Crystal Palace in the lead, while Chelsea are 10th with 3 points.
The Blues had again chosen to start their two German recruits, Timo Werner and Kaï Havertz in attack, but their integration will take time.
Jürgen Klopp, for his part, had lined up an eleven that could have started last season and sure of himself.
Deprived of Joe Gomez and Joel Matip in the axis of the defense, he had chosen to trust Fabinho alongside Virgil van Dijk.
Choice paying since the Brazilian has completely extinguished Werner, stirring but never found a shift.
The only time a favorable counter gave him a little space, he concluded with a crossed strike and a little crushed from the 20 meters which went past the goal (32nd).
Lampard, on the other hand, had neither launched Ben Chilwell nor Thiago Silva, his two defensive recruits.
Yet it is a sector that had weighed down his team last season and whose limits were still blatant on the fact of the game that tipped the meeting at the very end of the first act.
On a raise from the back, Jordan Henderson was in no hurry at all and launched Mané in depth, which was played on a call-against-call from Andreas Christensen.
The Dane found nothing better to do than tackle the striker 25 meters from his goals.
Automation paid off
The match's referee Paul Tierney, who initially pulled out a yellow card, needed VAR to realize the foul was worth a red and Chelsea ended up at 10 even before heading back to the locker room.
The second half, with the addition of Thiago Alcantara on the Liverpool side - one of the two important summer recruits with the Portuguese winger for Wolverhampton, Diogo Jota - quickly looked like an attack-defense.
And the automatisms of the collective of the defending champion paid off: a line combination in the last 20 meters between the trident in front of Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané, was concluded by an uncrossed header from the Senegalese (1-0, 50 ).
To make matters worse, Spanish goalkeeper Kepa, whose future at Chelsea is very uncertain and who is already lacking in confidence, made another blunder four minutes later.
After missing a pass, towards Salah, Mané rushed to the pressing and countered the goalkeeper's pass in his area towards a defender, to only have to push the ball to the bottom (2-0, 54th) .
Frank Lampard's men had the opportunity to revive the suspense a quarter of an hour from the end by obtaining a penalty for an Alcantara foul on Werner, but, extremely rare, the Italian Jorginho saw his shot pushed back by Alisson.
After showing worrying defensive weaknesses against Leeds, despite the 4-3 success, the Reds straightened out and sent a message to their putative rivals.
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