Chelsea left no room at all for bickering yesterday and barely allowed Liverpool a speaking part on their own Anfield stage. Rafael Benítez, manager of the losers here, has talked freely about the defects in his side but surely can never have guessed that they would be exposed so brutally.
He was unable to sign a midfielder for the right flank or, crucially in this match, a new centre-half. Didier Drogba, with no one to check him, went on a rampage that strewed four goals for others in its wake and he was never as isolated as he had been last Wednesday in the 0-0 draw in the Champions League.
Chelsea poured greater energy into this game and they will probably exercise themselves as strenuously to deny that there was any malice behind their attitude. Nonetheless they performed like men who were seething over the suggestion that Liverpool, their nemesis in the European Cup semi-final in May, do have some sort of hold of them. Benítez's team had no grip at all on this fixture.
After the interval expert counter-attackers ransacked Liverpool on the break. It was the club's worst result at home since Manchester United trounced them by the same margin in December 1969. The Anfield side are now 17 points behind Chelsea, although they do have two games in hand. In all likelihood they may not be much worse than any of the supposed challengers and the reigning champions already have a nine-point lead in the Premiership.
This match had a different character from Wednesday's encounter from the start. Chelsea had clearly resolved not to concede territory as they had then and the midfield engaged with Liverpool early and often. Michael Essien, somewhat bemused in the Champions League fixture, left others in a daze with his bulldozer tackling.
While Peter Crouch had some telling moments, such as the chest control and flick that bamboozled Ricardo Carvalho before he lashed over in the 73rd minute, he was usually isolated. It appeared that only Steven Gerrard could be counted upon to put pressure on Chelsea and, with so little assistance, he eventually wearied.
Events were going far too well for Chelsea to get tired and Drogba, in particular, has a boundless power. Djimi Traoré, with a lapse into the waywardness that Benítez must have thought had been purged, hit a clearance at the Ivory Coast forward and then, in a folly spawned by his panic, lunged into a tackle that brought down Drogba inside the penalty area.
Jamie Carragher, disregarding the fellowship of men who will meet up in the England squad on Tuesday, yapped at Frank Lampard but did not prevent the midfielder from converting the spot-kick with a finish that went under the torso of the diving José Reina.
For all their endeavour it was still a surprise that Liverpool should equalise nine minutes later. Carragher flicked on a John Arne Riise corner and Gerrard rifled home a drive from a tight angle on the right. The Chelsea left-back Asier del Horno instinctively turned away as Liverpool's captain let fly but he can revel in the recollection of most other incidents that involved him.
It was the Spaniard's header down the left, two minutes from the interval, that triggered the move that cracked the match open. Drogba pounced, beat the struggling Sami Hyypia with a turn and neat touch before laying the ball back to Damien Duff. Reina hesitated and the Irishman controlled before finishing a second before Xabi Alonso could challenge.
The game continued to be heated but a desperate Liverpool made all the mistakes. In the 63rd minute Del Horno dispossesed Luis García to release Drogba and the latter stubbed the ball into the goalmouth where Joe Cole waited to score. Eight minutes from the end, to the ignominy of Liverpool and the inattentive Steve Finnan, the Chelsea left-back released Drogba with a mere throw-in. One substitute, Arjen Robben, failed to connect properly with the cut-back but the other, Geremi, did not.
The dream of parity with Chelsea, which Benítez has maintained so resourcefully, had vanished. The Liverpool manager is left with a rather cold reality. Those shortcomings that he recognises cannot always be borne and the suspicions grow that he did require another striker far more than he would concede when the club was engaged in its attempt to re-sign the unaffordable Michael Owen.
Liverpool cannot compete for the league unless there are improvements to the squad and they will depend for glory on the defence, with all its obvious hazards, of the European Cup. By contrast Paulo Ferreira and Shaun Wright-Phillips did not even make Jose Mourinho's squad here. This was Chelsea's biggest win at Anfield since 1907 but, if the club's history has had long lacklustre passages, the future looks spellbinding.