Thomas Tuchel was woken up twice by the fireworks outside the Hilton hotel in Liverpool. The first time, he recalled, was at 1am, the second at 3am. On each occasion, he said, he was only disturbed for a minute by the Everton supporters’ attempts to distract Chelsea. He had more complaints about his team’s inability to keep a clean sheet.
But the hostile welcome for Chelsea began long before Richarlison harried Cesar Azpilicueta out of possession for Everton’s winner. Liverpool can feel the least English of English cities. Perhaps Chelsea were granted the kind of reception that was plucked from South America. “Nicely aggressive,” was how Frank Lampard described Everton’s fans. From the blue flares in the cramped streets around Goodison Park to the deafening noise inside, this felt like the antidote to the sanitised world of the Premier League.
