Slot brought back Mohamed Salah, Alexis Mac Allister and Alexander Isak, all of whom were on the bench for Wednesday\u2019s defeat to Galatasaray in Istanbul, but it was at the other end of the pitch where he was forced to make adjustments, sending on Curtis Jones for Konate in the 56th minute.<\/p>\n
“If I rotate against Galatasaray people complain that I rotate,” said Slot. “It is a risk playing Konate (against Chelsea), he\u2019s played three games in eight days with a four-hour flight up and down. That\u2019s the balance you need to find.”<\/p>\n
A high-octane game in west London culminated in a breathless finale. Chelsea \u2013 who had eight players missing through injury and suspension \u2013 ran Liverpool all over the pitch in the first half, taking the lead through a sublime long-range strike from Moises Caicedo.<\/p>\n
Later on, after Cody Gakpo had pounced on Isak\u2019s lovely controlled flick-on to equalise, they battled to close off avenues of attack as the champions found their confidence and their rhythm, before remarkable late drama.<\/p>\n
![\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/sport\/soccer\/2025\/1004\/1536807-estevao-the-hero-as-chelsea-shatter-liverpool-late-on\/\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/002344af-614.jpg\"\/)
\nEstevao (L) celebrates his winning goal<\/p>\n
Marc Cucurella got in down the left channel and crossed low to the far post where the 18-year-old Brazil international Estevao slid in to squeeze it home and spark uproarious scenes.<\/p>\n
“If you play the style we play, a high press, and with the style Chelsea play with a high press, it would be a complete surprise if neither team ever played through the press,” said Slot. “That would be unrealistic.<\/p>\n
“We came to Stamford Bridge with them having eight injuries, we\u2019re thinking this can be positive, they don\u2019t have the options from the bench. But they did have a few good options from the bench to impact the game.”<\/p>\n
There was plenty that Maresca needed here from his team after a difficult month. What they gave him was a fresh, gutsy display that brought resounding affirmation his work with this young squad is on track.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, he got three points that hauled Chelsea to within one win of the top four and put momentum back into their season after successive league losses to Manchester United and Brighton.<\/p>\n
“For a few weeks we\u2019ve been holding our emotions,” said assistant coach Willy Caballero, who spoke to the media after Maresca was dismissed for his wild celebrations following the winner.<\/p>\n
“We finished today with a back four of all full-backs. The players from the bench were ready to go and play. They didn\u2019t ask questions, they just went on the pitch and did fantastic.<\/p>\n
“The goal gave the emotions to Enzo to run. Today is a great victory. The whole crowd was living the game. That\u2019s we want to create, an environment that is nasty for the away team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arne Slot believes he will be criticised whether or not he looks to rest players after Ibrahima Konate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-61467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}