Why Liverpool guard of honour could help inspire Chelsea bid to become Premier League contenders again | OneFootball

Young Chelsea squad will hope paying tribute to Premier League champions is not an experience they have to repeat

Your matchday briefing on Chelsea, featuring team news and expert analysis from Malik Ouzia

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Experience is the topic of the moment at Stamford Bridge. Chelsea, by their own design, don’t have a great deal of it and while Enzo Maresca has hinted he might like to bring some in this summer, he has also been adamant that the young players already at the club will be better for their tumultuous journey through this campaign.

Into the New Year, there was a mid-season slump, another disruptive transfer window cull, an attacking injury crisis and, in recent weeks, something of a rallying response.

It is thanks to that melting pot of fortunes that this season could still yet end in either glory or failure, with European silverware, a return to the Champions League, both or none.

But of those varied experiences the Premier League’s youngest squad has come through already this term, and whichever still lies ahead, you wonder whether that of giving Liverpool a guard of honour this weekend might quietly end up among the more influential.

Chelsea will line up to give Liverpool a guard of honour at Anfield on Sunday

Getty Images

Elite football players, of any age and however long or briefly they’ve been there, do not reach the top level without being fiercely competitive and being forced to publicly acknowledge respect, yes, but also objective inferiority can only sting.

“Of course we are envious because being a champion doesn’t happen to everyone, it doesn’t happen every day,” former Arsenal and Manchester City defender Bacary Sagna told The Telegraph in an interview a few years back, having had to applaud a Man United side including former team-mate Robin van Persie out at Old Trafford in 2013. “Coming from the players we are showing our respect but we are also jealous.”

Arsenal were at that stage in a similar position to Chelsea, chasing a place in the top-four against a side already with medals dangling from their necks. Maresca confirmed on Friday that the Blues will honour the tradition of welcoming Arne Slot’s newly-crowned champions to Stamford Bridge, having slipped from second-place and their coattails to 22 points adrift and instead battling for fifth. It is not, however, an occasion they will want to live again.

“I don't think we need that to understand how good it is to win the Premier League, I think we know that it's something very nice,” Maresca said. “But for sure, when you are there, probably in their mind, our players are thinking, 'I would like one day to be there’.”

Marc Cucurella, one of few senior players in Maresca’s squad and a European champion with Spain last summer, confirmed as much.

"Yes, for sure,” he said, when asked whether being forced by convention to hail one-time rivals might spur and inspire the Blues in future. “It's a good thing to have it. I think if you ask if we do [the guard of honour] and then we win the game, I think all of us would do it easy. But yes, it's true.

“Hopefully, we can have this as well in the next few years. It’s what we are fighting for and what we are trying to do. It's a process.”

Marc Cucurella hopes to one day be in Liverpool’s position

Action Images via Reuters

Having beaten Djurgarden 4-1 in the first leg of their Conference League semi-final on Thursday night, the Blues remain firmly on course to achieve the minimum target in that competition - namely, winning it.

But it is their league position that will ultimately define the success of Maresca’s first season in charge, and probably each of those that follow. For now, that means finishing in the top five and returning to the Champions League. At some point in the future, it will be trying to overhaul Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and the rest, to regain the title they last won in 2017.

“When I joined this club I wanted to fight for trophies and fight for big things,” said Cucurella, who has been outstanding this term after a mixed start to life at the Bridge.

“We showed our level [this season], we started to create something important and now it's in our hands.

“We have one more game to play [to reach] the final and then four games to play [to qualify] next season for the Champions League.

“We are very ambitious on these things because it depends on us and we can show that we are ready and we deserve to stay there.”