It is a game that takes place within the confines of the 2022-23 season, but neither side can wait to see the back of the campaign.
For Chelsea, a first match post-Graham Potter is being overseen by the now sacked manager's faithful assistant Bruno Saltor, a man who has admitted he's never picked a team before and, if he's still in place next Wednesday, will have taken on Jurgen Klopp, Julen Lopetegui and Carlo Ancelotti on the first three occasions he's done so. There are just the five Champions Leagues, a Europa League and eight major league titles between them.
But like Cristian Stellini at Tottenham, the former Brighton defender has been thrust into the limelight so forcefully that you can't really judge anything that his team do too harshly on Tuesday night. Any form of positivity is a bonus.
For Liverpool meanwhile, positivity has become fleeting. For them Stamford Bridge represents another one crossed off the list, another hurdle down.
Whereas last season and in many of the seasons before these hurdles were being soared over by a confident team on a mission, now they are being clattered in to left, right and centre, and whatever it is that's left of the current team which reaches the finish line - a finish line which is still has a very good chance of coming with a Champions League place - promises to soon look very different.
Because Jurgen Klopp had enough of protecting his players around about the time of the heavy defeats at Brighton and Wolves in the Premier League, and then even more so after the 5-2 reversal at home to Real Madrid.
Ever since that game he has been openly discussing the changes that will be on the way in the summer, even going as far as to say that "there's only two or three" players in the squad for Tuesday night who can definitively know that their place at Liverpool is safe for next season.
Well, two or three in red shirts anyway.
So often guarded and prickly around transfers when things were going well, Klopp's openness on the impending rebuild has been a stark contrast, and goes to suggest that he is confident that he already has at least a couple of additions lined up during what Fenway Sports Group are acutely aware has to be a busy summer of arrivals.
With that in mind it will be interesting to see the behaviour of Mason Mount and Conor Gallagher on Tuesday, if indeed they are involved for a Chelsea side who can seemingly pick from a cast of thousands.
Mount is a name who has consistently been linked with the Reds for months now, and the lack of progress on a new Chelsea contract is only making a summer parting of the ways more and more likely. Manchester United and Bayern Munich are known to be admirers, but if there is a club where an energetic midfield player knows he has the best chance of making his mark right now it is Liverpool.
The Reds have been putting in the work to sign the England international, with talks described as "productive" being held, and while in Mount's ideal world he'd probably have preferred to stay at Stamford Bridge and for everything to go back to how it was when he was thrust into the team by Frank Lampard or winning the Champions League under Thomas Tuchel, the current incarnation of Chelsea is no longer ideal for him.
With Financial Fair Play regulations hovering over them, the sale of Mount - a player Chelsea did not spend a transfer fee on, so therefore counts as pure profit in the books - is starting to look as though it simply has to happen, and a parting of the ways should also be good for a player who can be decisive on his day, but divisive on most others.
Gallagher, who Klopp is a known admirer of, would not be the attention-grabbing signing that Mount or indeed Jude Bellingham would be, but for a Liverpool side in need of both energetic midfield options and homegrown players he would also make a lot of sense.
Like Mount he probably wouldn't want to leave having finally broken through into the team after a succession of loans, but that increasingly looks like a stance that was only relevant before the Todd Boehly circus came to town. He too would represent valuable FFP profit and be confident that he could do a good job for Klopp's Liverpool, which used to be built on midfield legs before most of them faded fast.
As a pair Mount and Gallagher wouldn't solve all of Liverpool's problems of course, and there is a sizeable amount of the club's fanbase who will accept nobody but Bellingham this summer, but the duo could represent key figures in the surgery required.
Klopp will certainly have his eye on them on Tuesday evening, and then for potentially a lot longer when next season finally rolls around.
