LONDON — Mumbling under his breath, shaking his head in lament, David Luiz was the last player to vanish from the field. He had taken as much time as is needed after the last shriek. As Liverpool's players headed toward celebrate with their fans, and as his Chelsea partners walked despondently toward the passage, Luiz waited.
He peeled off his pullover. He gave a couple of handshakes on enthusiastic youthful fans achieving their arms out for him to brush. He made a point to wave to relatively every side of the stadium; just that pocket of upbeat Liverpool supporters stayed away from his look. Just when his voyage through obligation was finished did he leave, dissatisfaction scratched all over.
In that, he reflected those fans spilling out of the stadium. Until the 89th moment, Chelsea had appeared to be bound for a triumph that would have moved Maurizio Sarri's group — which he recognizes is a work in advance — above Liverpool in the Chief Association standings, to an offer of the lead, isolated from Manchester City just by objective distinction.
It had been a session of fine edges, not exactly one of those wild rides the Chief Group envisions is its reason for living card, yet a fast, high-bore event, the primary gathering of bona fide peers in the early season. The distinction, the main contrast, was that Chelsea had taken its risk — a move began vivaciously and completed dazzlingly by Eden Danger, halfway through the principal half — where Liverpool, on about six events, had not.
That had, in no little part, been Luiz's doing. Not just on the grounds that he had showed up, at last, to prevent a header from Roberto Firmino that would have drawn Liverpool even, but since he had delivered an execution of exactness and balance, control and focus, to keep the guests' forward line under control. Liverpool, obviously, flaunts the most costly protector on the planet, the correspondingly perfect Virgil van Dijk. Luiz's presentation was an update with respect to why, until last January, he had held that title.
There was nothing he may have done — nothing anybody may have done, truly — about the objective that rescued a point for Liverpool, that sent that side of red moving into the night.
Daniel Sturridge, on the field for just four minutes, grabbed the ball outside Chelsea's punishment territory, looked up and lifted a swerving, plunging shot past the scope of Kepa Arrizabalaga for the draw. Its brightness offered little comfort to Luiz, or to his partners.
The objective topped what has been a far-fetched renaissance for Sturridge. This late spring, his Liverpool profession had all the earmarks of being at an end. He had been conveyed on credit to West Bromwich Albion last January, in edgy hunt of playing time in a vain any expectation of driving his direction onto Britain's Reality Container squad. He played six times. He didn't score. West Brom was consigned.
Most expected he would be sold, should a purchaser approach, a group willing to go out on a limb on his generous wages. It had turned out to be evident that he was not a characteristic fit for a Jürgen Klopp group: deficiently exceptional while pursuing the ball down, excessively slanted to moderating the play. The rhythms of director and player had never been very in a state of harmony.
His mediation on Saturday, however, acquired his count to four objectives seven appearances this season; he is, out of the blue, Liverpool's driving objective scorer, level with Sadio Mané. When none of Klopp's favored advances are comfortable best, Sturridge's surprising restoration has been not only an appreciated lift, but rather a pivotal factor in Liverpool's force.
No not as much as Sturridge, Luiz demonstrates that there can be a second demonstration in a Head Group life. More than that, actually: The Brazilian is, at this stage, in his fourth or fifth manifestation as a Chelsea player. He isn't the club's best player; that respect, underlined once more here, falls soundly to Danger. He isn't even its most vital (Danger once more, clearly).
No player, however, epitomizes the character of the cutting edge Chelsea superior to Luiz; no player very typifies the puzzling instability of the Chief Class' most persevering 21st-century superpower very as he does. He is, in the recurring patterns of his chance at Stamford Scaffold, the ideal symbol for his group.
Luiz is one of those players who have turned out to be highlighted thrown individuals in the Head Class' cleanser musical show: an obsession for online networking, a general wellspring of material for radio telephone ins and daily paper reporters. He is that most valuable kind of player in a media age, a solid substance generator, and he has been for quite a while.
It is about a long time since he previously touched base in Britain; it is six since Gary Neville, the previous Manchester Joined skipper, depicted him as guarding as though he were being "controlled by a 10-year-old on a PlayStation." He is one of those players who draw the eye, the camera, the feedback. Everybody has a conclusion on David Luiz. They are not all positive, and they are not all changeless.