Liverpool are handing Arsenal the title! Winners & losers as Arne Slot's self-destructive champions gift late win to plucky Chelsea as Estevao announces himself to the world

We'll start with the man who settled the contest. Well, in many ways at the age of 18, he's still an adolescent, but you would barely be able to tell that by watching him.

There was much excitement around west London when Chelsea beat the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich to Estevao's signature in 2024. Widely tipped as one of Brazil's famed generational attackers, he's already made a compelling case to be a regular starter at Stamford Bridge and this performance will only strengthen that.

Estevao replaced the hard-working but quiet Pedro Neto on 75 minutes with the game finely poised at 1-1. To that point, Chelsea had been adventurous but ultimately blunt, as best showcased by their opener coming through a screamer from distance. With each touch of the ball Estevao had, you could hear the clank of the plastic seats around the stadium. Home fans got to their feet, knowing he was going to do something special. Before scoring, he dug out a fantastic cross for Enzo Fernandez to head off the post and forced Mamardashvili into a stretching stop. He set his own stage for a grandstand finale.

The teenager soaked in the Stamford Bridge atmosphere and milked every last drop of adulation. At full-time, he embraced with the injured Cole Palmer, the current poster-boy of this Chelsea project, perhaps wondering if there was room for another co-star once they can take to the pitch together. It's difficult for anyone to come off the bench at 18 to swing a game the way Estevao did, let alone against the reigning Premier League champions.

The main reason Chelsea were able to claw their way back into the game was because of Liverpool's negligence, both on and off the pitch. Their lavish summer transfer spend surpassing the £400m-mark now looks greedy for the sake of greedy as the team have lost their sense of shape and sensibility.

Slot has had the task of trying to assemble a new-look team ready to compete straight away, which of course takes time, but they have seldom looked as settled and streetwise as the outfit from his debut season at Anfield. He arrived on Merseyside in the summer of 2024 hailed as a smart manager who tinkered and adapted to the needs of different situations and squad at his disposal, and he needs to figure out how to maximise this one as soon as possible. For much of the second half, Liverpool's back four consisted of Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch, Virgil van Dijk and Andy Robertson. You didn't get the sense that this was a team serious about keeping Chelsea out.

Not only have his Liverpool team lost for a third successive game for the first time on his watch, but twice now they have been beaten at their own game. To begin the season, the Reds came up with a series of late goals to snatch victories, though have now fallen to defeat for a second week running owing to a stoppage-time slip-up.

"We were the dominant team, but in the last ten to fifteen minutes it was end to end, both teams could have scored. Both teams arrived a lot of times at the 18-yard line. These are the margins that don't fall for us at the moment. We have to work harder to not rely on these margins. Chelsea, Palace away, these are also teams that ask you a lot of questions," Slot assessed post-match. Again, this is not a team in control of its own fortune with how loose and free they've been playing.

In the blue corner, Maresca will recognise this was a massive win in not only this season, but his tenure as a whole. Amid a recent slump in results, reports have emerged of the club hierarchy's willingness to assess his position at the end of the campaign. That's not to say his job is in danger or under threat, but that this line needed to be pedalled out to the public is clearly a sign that some things are going awry.

Chelsea pulled up to Stamford Bridge missing several key players, not least Palmer, sidelined due to injury, with many pointing to the impact of the summer's Club World Cup as a reason behind the crisis. His makeshift centre-back pairing of Josh Acheampong and Benoit Badiashile, who both performed well here, had to go off after pulling up. It would have been understandable if this young side crumbled under the pressure of an expensive and accomplished Liverpool attack.

Instead, Chelsea came roaring back. They rallied again and again until they broke the Liverpool resistance. As Estevao's winner rippled the net, Maresca sprinted down the touchline a la Jose Mourinho in celebration and perhaps relief. It's easy to question the mentality of a team whose average age is below 25, whose manager has fewer than three full seasons in the profession. Yet here they were together, taking the game to the champions of England.

Maresca's sending off meant he was unable to speak to the media after the game, but you can bet for sure that he would have been grinning from ear to ear at the sweet vindication of such a seismic win. It was a rare show of emotion for a man who's kept his cards close to his chest since taking this job, and this is the kind of moment that ought to buy him more endearment and good will with supporters.

Boy, where do you even start with this one? Mohamed Salah has gone six Premier League matches without a goal from open play, which by his standards is the drought of the century. What's more alarming is what he is, or isn't, doing in these games.

That same spark isn't there anymore. That unpredictability is gone. In contrast to the youthful Estevao, Salah was the embodiment of the Steve Buscemi 'how do you do, fellow kids?' meme.

A quiet first half came and went without Salah getting involved pretty much at all. The second would have made Liverpool fans wish they were watching the first again instead, with the Egyptian King going from merely a passenger to someone who was of detriment to their chances of winning. Wirtz set Salah in on goal within a minute of the restart with a clever flick, and on a normal day it would have ended the German's long wait for a goal involvement in Liverpool colours. Alas, Salah somehow fired wide. From there on, whenever the winger actually had space to gallop into or room to shoot, he fired into bodies of defenders or right into the Shed End.

It's not unusual for Salah to begin seasons at a slower pace, but at the age of 33 and with thousands of minutes already on his body, it's going to prove an even harder challenge to get back into the rhythm everyone expects of him.

"It can't go on like this," Liverpool supporters must be musing. "It can," Wirtz must be responding. That's now nine games without a single goal or assist as a Liverpool player, having ended his last two seasons with Bayer Leverkusen with double figures in both.

Like Salah, the distress of Wirtz's displays goes beyond the stats. He's hesitant and evidently unsure of himself in the harsh waters of the Premier League. Germany's most revered player between the lines doesn't look comfortable anywhere on a pitch in England. At £117m, excelling at this alone should be the bare minimum.

Maybe this is a completely different story if Salah actually converts the gilt-edged chance set up by Wirtz in the 46th minute. That shouldn't have been his final highlight, however, nor his first after only starting on the bench for that matter. He needs to be swinging games one way or another, just like a Palmer or an Estevao. Slot bemoaned his side's missed chances come full-time, but none of them fell the way of their supposedly new star playmaker.

Each game in which Wirtz doesn't tangibly contribute will only bring more scrutiny and pressure, particularly if Liverpool aren't winning. It's a lot easier to coast if results are still going your way, but with three losses on the spin, there are valid questions to be asked of Wirtz.

Earlier on Saturday, Arsenal moved to the top of the Premier League table with a routine 2-0 win at home to West Ham, capping off a run of three wins and a draw since they lost at Anfield prior to the September international break. Even a fortnight ago, the title looked to be slipping away from Arsenal after only just about salvaging a point at home to Manchester City, yet they now have the momentum and points advantage over Liverpool.

It's too soon to definitively say who will finish first in the Premier League this season, but the control and maturity of this Arsenal side is lightyears ahead of whatever version of Liverpool this is. The Gunners may not be as fun to watch, yet they carry that aura and confidence of a team who knows how to win the game's most prestigious prizes. Their rivals from Merseyside are relying on chaos to tilt them in the right direction, an unsustainable formula for success.

Liverpool need to figure out who they are if they are to reclaim top spot and win back-to-back titles. They aren't out of this by any stretch, but the signs are far from promising. Everything about them seems muddled and jumbled.