Tuesday 24 November 2015 11:50, UK
Philippe Coutinho and Christian Benteke have heaped the pressure on Jose Mourinho.
The pair fired Liverpool to a 3-1 win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, cancelling out Ramires' earlier opener. With the Blues boss feeling the heat - and his defending champions with just 11 points from 11 games - here are five talking points from the fixture...
Pressure ramps up on Mourinho
The last time Liverpool played at Stamford Bridge they formed a guard of honour for Jose Mourinho's Premier League champions. On Saturday lunchtime, their comprehensive 3-1 victory over a Chelsea team incomparable to the side which cruised to the 2014/15 title heaped huge pressure on the Portuguese.
Before kick-off, only Watford and West Brom had scored fewer goals than Liverpool in the league this season but Jurgen Klopp's men exposed a Chelsea defence now conceding two goals per game on average.
Since the first five minutes Chelsea have been awful.
The numbers are bad enough - this was Chelsea's eighth defeat in all competitions after only losing four times in the entire 2014/15 campaign; the Blues have lost three of their last five home league games after going unbeaten in the previous 21; they have made, statistically, the worst start to a title defence in history. But it could be their performance against Liverpool which edges Mourinho's second Stamford Bridge tenure to a close.
"It's not the result they're going to question, it's the manner of the performance," Tony Cottee told Sky Sports News HQ. "Since the first five minutes Chelsea have been awful."
Red card controversy?
Mourinho and the Chelsea players were furious with Mark Clattenburg's decision not to award Lucas Leiva a second yellow card on 68 minutes, when the Liverpool midfielder tripped Ramires.
Booked in the first half for a challenge on John Obi Mikel after making a succession of fouls, Lucas' sixth foul of the game, with the score at 1-1 and seven minutes before Coutinho put Liverpool ahead, was a pivotal moment.
However, Chelsea's anger should be tempered by the fact that, six minutes earlier, Diego Costa was fortunate not to see red for kicking out at Martin Skrtel. The pair tumbled to the ground in the centre circle and Costa caught the Liverpool defender in the chest with his studs.
Both Lucas and Costa could have gone but in the end Clattenburg kept 22 men on the field.
Hazard hauled off
Substituted before the hour mark, Eden Hazard didn't even get a glance from his manager Mourinho as he trudged into the Chelsea dugout.
The Belgian had played the first half in a central role behind Costa, with Oscar occupying his usual left wing role. It may have been a move from Mourinho to try to draw more out of his mis-firing forward, whose poor penalty at Stoke in midweek had ended Chelsea's Capital One Cup hopes. It didn't work.
Hazard failed to make a mark as Liverpool dominated possession (64.1 per cent in the first half).
After 13 minutes back in his favoured left-side position after the break, last season's player of the year was replaced with 19-year-old Kenedy. Hazard hadn't been taken off in a Premier League game since May, when he was substituted in the 89th minute of a 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace after scoring the winner.
This time he left the field having made more passes in the opposition half (18) than any other Chelsea player at the time of the change - but without recording a single shot or key pass.
Klopp beats Mourinho...again
Ahead of the first Premier League meeting between two of the division's most charismatic managers, all eyes were on how Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp would set up their sides at Stamford Bridge. Neither disappointed, with both making intriguing selections.
For the first time, Mourinho dropped Cesc Fabregas on form for a Premier League fixture. Nemanja Matic was also benched, after being sent off last weekend against West Ham. Instead, Mourinho went with John Obi Mikel and Ramires in the holding roles in front of his defence. Hazard was also switched inside, with Oscar taking his left-wing role.
Klopp began the game without a recognised striker, with Roberto Firmino in a false nine role alongside Coutinho and Adam Lallana.
Both managers adjusted their set-ups during the contest, with Mourinho restoring Hazard to his regular role before throwing Fabregas into the action, while Klopp introduced Benteke to devastating effect in the second half.
In the end, it was the German who came out on top - as he has done in the past against Mourinho.
The pair previously went head-to-head in the 2012/13 Champions League, when Klopp's Borussia Dortmund pipping Mourinho's Real Madrid to top spot in their group after beating the Spanish side 2-1 at home and drawing at the Bernabeu. The two met again at the semi-final stage, with Dortmund crushing Real 4-1 in Germany before progressing to the final despite a 2-0 loss in Madrid.
Coutinho responds as Benteke makes his mark
Coutinho was coming in for criticism before this game, with a poor performance against Southampton highlighting the Brazilian's failure to add to his opening day winner against Stoke or register more than the two assists he'd managed against struggling Aston Villa. But the 23-year-old delivered a perfect response to his doubters at the Bridge.
Despite Liverpool dominating possession in the first-half, they hadn't come close to troubling Asmir Begovic in the Chelsea goal. They needed some magic from somewhere to get back into the game after Chelsea's opener - and Coutinho delivered it, curling a superb effort into the top corner from the edge of the box after selling Ramires a delicious dummy.
Coutinho had recorded the worst passing accuracy of any Liverpool midfielder or forward in Chelsea's half up until that point, misplacing six of his 23 attempted passes. His only real contribution to Liverpool's attack had been one wayward cross. But his goal - his first in 710 minutes of Premier League football - shifted the momentum.
He doubled his tally and put Liverpool ahead with a deflected effort off Terry in the second half - sealing his first Premier Legaue brace - but Benteke's knockdown was key in that move, the Belgian expertly steering Mamadou Sakho's long ball into his team-mate's path.
The striker - who stepped off the bench to head in a leveller against Southampton last weekend - again made the difference with his introduction. And after teeing up Coutinho, flicked a long ball on for Jordon Ibe, latched onto the return pass, and found the net, with the help of a deflection, to end the contest.
