Photo: Andrew Yates/Reuters

Liverpool are out of the League Cup tonight, but that’s not the part I’m livid about. You can keep the League Cup at this point. It’s the last trophy the Reds have won, back in 2012. They could win it a hundred times in the next hundred years, and if they haven’t found a way to win the Premier League or the European Cup as well in the meantime, I’ll have thought it all for naught.

It isn’t even really the fact that they lost to Chelsea, either. Don’t get me wrong—given everything that’s transpired between these two clubs over the past decade and a half, I think I only relish wins over United and Everton more than I do those over the Blues of London. I hate their guts. I want to beat them, and convincingly, every time we play them. Two of my best friends who are also soccer fans are also Chelsea supporters. On match days, I hate their guts as well.

No, the real reason I can almost feel the steam fuming out of my pores over this defeat is the manner in which it transpired—a 1-2 capitulation at home to an opposition who were so clearly inferior for so much of the night, so obviously behind on the scorecards, only for them to come back from a deficit and snatch the win, the spoils, the bragging rights, the slot in the next round.

The second-string Reds were better than the second-string Blues tonight. Daniel Sturridge scored a brilliant goal that should have been remembered as the game-winner on a classic cup night at Anfield. Both before and after that goal, Liverpool had numerous opportunities to put Chelsea to the sword and assert their superiority on the contest where it counts: the scoreline. But they didn’t, and instead the second-string Blues got to bring on Eden Hazard late in a one-goal game, and they got to score on set-piece to tie it up with 10 to go, and then Hazard made a fool of poor Albie Moreno (who had a decent game, all in all) and banged in a worldie to win the game for Chelsea.

The context—however rational and considerable it may be—provides no relief here. It doesn’t matter that the Reds fielded an entirely second-choice back five, all of whom haven’t gotten many minutes at all this season, all of whom did perfectly alright for most of the evening. It doesn’t matter that Fabinho was making his first Liverpool start and looked a very tidy, very useful Liverpool player; that Naby Keita looked like the midfield terror we were promised; that Xherdan Shaqiri looked a threat down the right all night.

The only thing that mattered tonight was that these Reds—a football team for whom, their significant defensive improvement aside, are still so very much about putting the ball in the back of the net—failed to convert many a good opportunity to put the ball in the back of the net. For that, Chelsea made them pay, and now me and the manager and every Liverpool player in that dressing room and a hundred million Reds the world over are absolutely fuming out of every pore. They can keep their League Cup—no one’s won it more times than us, anyway. But that victory should have been Liverpool’s tonight; they should have won that football match, and with their victory impressed upon Chelsea—impressed on everyone around the world who was watching—that they are the superior football team. Instead, Chelsea came to Anfield and stole the win, and the Reds let them steal the win. There is nothing in all of sports that is more infuriating.

But none of that matters now. At this point in time, the only thing that is of consequence is Saturday. In less than three days, Liverpool go to Stamford Bridge for the late Saturday kickoff, and once again the eyes of the world will be on these two teams. This time, it won’t be a slot in the fourth round of the League Cup on the line; this time, it will be for three momentous Premier League points. This time, it’ll be the first-string Reds against the first-string Blues. You can have your psychological edges, I’ve got no time for them.

Saturday. Stamford Bridge. Three points. It’s the only thing of consequence now. Up the fuming Reds.