Heaven & Chel for Reds

Travelling fans party on at Stamford Bridge but Premier League champions turn in lacklustre display

- By PAUL GORST

ARNE SLOT and his Liverpool players might have been forgiven for raising an eyebrow at what awaited them at the full-time whistle at Stamford Bridge.

Having slipped to a third defeat of the campaign, this time 3-1 to Champions League-chasing Chelsea, the Reds’ head coach and his squad will reasonably have expected some disappointed faces as they made their way towards the away end to applaud their support.

Instead, what greeted them was a set of supporters celebrating even more wildly than those in the home ends.

Plumes of red smoke drifted into the London sky, balloons spelled out ‘champions’ and the creative and colourful banners were all on show with pride.

The message was clear: Liverpool's Premier League title procession is underway and it'll take more than this to spoil the fun.

And when the end-of-season DVD is released to retell the story of the club's 20th league title victory, it’s entirely plausible that this game will be ignored completely.

It certainly won't take up much of run-time at least.

This was a Liverpool side in decompression mode and pitted against what is one of the most expensively assembled squads of all time, who were in search of vital points for Champions League qualification at home, it should be viewed as no major shock to see Slot’s men beaten when it’s all weighed up.