Ask Antonio Conte why it was that Chelsea were unable to build on the Premier League title success of 2017 and it is fair to assume the Italian will not point to himself.
In fact, Conte would not only blame that summer for Chelsea losing their advantage but would also point to the January 2018 transfer window as having a transformative effect on Liverpool.
Conte had earmarked Virgil van Dijk as one of his primary targets after winning the League at the end of his first season as Chelsea head coach and was confident the club would land the Dutchman for him.
Liverpool had finished fourth that year, so Conte saw no reason as to why his club should not be able to see off their rival bid.
But Conte and perhaps Chelsea had not bargained on the persuasive powers of charismatic Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, who managed to convince Van Dijk in the summer of 2017 that Anfield should be his preferred destination.
It took another six months for Liverpool to land him, but Van Dijk eventually helped his new club to finish one place above Chelsea and qualify for the Champions League ahead of Chelsea at the end of the 2017/18 campaign.
From that moment, Chelsea have been playing catch up and now it rests on head coach Frank Lampard to plot how he can eventually claw back a deficit of more than 20 points to this season’s champions.
That may look a tall order, but it should be remembered that Conte’s Chelsea had finished 17 points ahead of Klopp’s Liverpool just three years ago and there have been encouraging signs that Chelsea have learned valuable lessons from the past.
Just as Klopp and sporting director Michael Edwards have succeeded in putting on a united front and working in close contact to land targets, Chelsea appear ready to benefit from rediscovering the art of joined up-thinking.
Conte famously switched his phone off for a large part of the summer of 2017 in a bid to force the club to deliver his targets, but Lampard’s approach, together with technical and performance advisor Petr Cech, has been far more inclusive and the relationship with director Marina Granovskaia is close.
Former team-mates Lampard and Cech did not especially fancy their chances when they made a secret pre-lockdown trip to Germany to meet Timo Werner, his agent and his family.
Liverpool and Manchester United had already spoken to Werner and his representatives, and the feeling around Chelsea was they were very much third in the queue.
But Cech managed to speak in Werner’s native German tongue to the forward’s agent and family, and Lampard, partly through the ex-goalkeeper, communicated his vision and passion for the club.
The talks paid dividends and, as Werner confirmed himself, Lampard and Cech did enough to convince him that Stamford Bridge was his preferred destination before Granovskaia worked fast to close a deal with RB Leipzig.
“Inter (Milan), Manchester United and Liverpool wanted me? Yes, I could have gone to these teams too,” Werner told Sportbuzzer. “The best clubs fought for me.
“The entire Chelsea package in the end, however, turned out to be the best in my career. Money played a marginal role. For me, money was never a decisive factor, otherwise I could have gone to China.
“Chelsea is a leading club in European football. There is a team of great quality, we want to get to the top. I don’t regret my decision for even a second.”
The signing of Werner also demonstrated that Chelsea have learned lessons from their own past and perhaps from Liverpool’s patience over clinching the Van Dijk deal.
In January, Lampard had been desperate to land a forward but Paris Saint-Germain and Napoli refused to negotiate over Edinson Cavani and Dries Mertens, while Erling Haaland chose Borussia Dortmund.
Previous managers and coaches had reacted to a failure to sign primary targets by pushing the club into taking gambles over more temporary options such as Radamel Falcao, Alexandre Pato and most recently Gonzalo Higuain.
Chelsea were offered the chance to sign former Newcastle United frontman Salomon Rondon in the dying hours of the January window, but they declined to panic and instead opted to wait until their top long-term targets became available.
Granovskaia received criticism from some fans at the end of the January window and yet the same supporters have once again been celebrating her negotiating skills ever since, following the deals for Werner and Hakim Ziyech back in February.
There are likely to be more signings as well, with the club poised to make a bid for Kai Havertz after Bayer Leverkusen failed to qualify for the Champions League and Leicester City left-back Ben Chilwell once the Premier League season finishes.
But Chelsea may have to follow Liverpool’s example once again if they are to overhaul them in the next few years and sign a new goalkeeper.
Record signing Kepa Arrizabalaga is clearly talented, but there remains a feeling that he is not top-class and Cech will know better than anybody that few teams win Premier League titles without one of the best goalkeepers.
While the signing of Van Dijk in many ways transformed Liverpool’s fortunes, it was not until Alisson Becker, who Chelsea had initially targeted, arrived that Klopp’s nearly men became winners.
There will no doubt be some lingering regret inside Stamford Bridge that Chelsea did not manage to replace Thibaut Courtois with Becker, rather than Kepa, two years ago and the club face another big decision over that position.
Chelsea would no doubt get along just fine by sticking with Kepa, but Lampard has made it clear that is not enough and to win trophies he may well have to sign a top-level replacement. Finding the right man would clearly present the biggest challenge but, in Cech, he has the perfect sounding board.
Granovskaia has also demonstrated she is ready to do everything in her power to back Lampard, which means Liverpool will be wary of a blue threat from outside Manchester in the coming years.
