His intervention on Saturday, though, brought his tally to four goals in seven appearances this season; he is, all of a sudden, Liverpool’s leading goal scorer, level with Sadio Mané. At a time when none of Klopp’s favored forwards are quite at their best, Sturridge’s unexpected revival has been not just a welcome boost, but a crucial factor in Liverpool’s momentum.

No less than Sturridge, Luiz proves that there can be a second act in a Premier League life. More than that, in fact: The Brazilian is, at this stage, in his fourth or fifth incarnation as a Chelsea player. He is not the club’s best player; that honor, underlined yet again here, falls squarely to Hazard. He is not even its most important (Hazard again, obviously).

No player, though, embodies the character of the modern Chelsea better than Luiz; no player quite encapsulates the baffling volatility of the Premier League’s most enduring 21st-century superpower quite as he does. He is, in the ebbs and flows of his time at Stamford Bridge, the perfect avatar for his team.

Luiz is one of those players who have become featured cast members in the Premier League’s soap opera: a fixation for social media, a regular source of material for radio phone-ins and newspaper columnists. He is that most precious sort of player in a media age, a reliable content generator, and he has been for some time.

It is nearly eight years since he first arrived in England; it is six since Gary Neville, the former Manchester United captain, described him as defending as if 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 criticism. Everyone has an opinion on David Luiz. They are not all positive, and they are not all permanent.