(CNN) Maurizio Sarri's Chelsea spoiled Liverpool's perfect start to the season when a late Eden Hazard stunner dumped the Premier League leaders out of the Carabao Cup Wednesday night.
Liverpool's Daniel Sturridge had opened the scoring on 58 minutes, before Chelsea's Emerson Palmieri pegged Jurgen Klopp's runaway side back eleven minutes from time.
The match was headed to penalties when Hazard, receiving the ball outside the box on the right wing, skipped through Liverpool's defense before whipping a shot into the top corner to score a stunning winner with five minutes to go.
Chelsea's assistant coach Gianfranco Zola hailed the mercurial Belgian as "one of the best in the world" following the late solo goal, according to the BBC. "It's a fantastic goal. Not only the beauty of it but for the time he scored it," the former Chelsea talisman said of the second-half sub, adding that he felt the best is yet to come from a "remarkable" player.
Meanwhile, beleaguered Premier League side West Ham took the EFL's cup competition as a welcome respite from its league travails to put eight unanswered goals against hapless Macclesfield Town.
The gap between the top flight team and Macclesfield, languishing in 24th in England's fourth-tier competition was too great an obstacle for the Cheshire side, which went down without a whimper to braces from Robert Snodgrass and Grady Diangiana and goals from Lucas Perez, Ryan Fredericks and Angelo Ogbonna after Michail Antonio opened scoring just before the half-hour mark.
Elsewhere, Arsenal continued its resurgence of form under new boss Unai Emery with a routine 3-1 win over fellow London side Brentford, with Danny Welbeck finding his scoring boots after only five minutes, before adding a second before the break.
The Bees' Alan Judge pulled one back through a free kick 13 minutes -- his first goal in almost a 1,000 days following a double-leg break, according to the BBC -- after the restart but Arsenal's French striker Alexandre Lacazette put the result beyond doubt in injury time to advance his side to the next round.
It was late drama at Milton Keynes' Stadium MK as the Gunners' arch-rivals Tottenham needed penalties to advance at the expense of Watford -- this year's surprise package in the Premier League -- after Watford's Etienne Kapoue equalized in the 89th minute to cancel out Erik Lamela's goal just three minutes earlier.
In the other Carabao Cup tie of the evening, 10-man Championship side Nottingham Forest beat Stoke City despite a late rally from the Potters.