The Chelsea Chronicle
Match21 Aug 2027
Chelsea make home a hard place to visit
19 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Market23 Aug 2027
Manchester City come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Chelsea did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad23 Aug 2027
7 saves: Diogo Costa was the team
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 7 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
Pep Chavarría says Chelsea went back on their word
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Market23 Aug 2027
Ishé Samuels-Smith says no to Cambridge United
“I listened, I thought about it, and I am staying. That is the whole story.” The clubs had agreed a fee. Ishé Samuels-Smith had not agreed to go, which turned out to be the part that mattered.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Reece James in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chelsea this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
6 academy players handed senior numbers at Chelsea
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Match21 Aug 2027
Chelsea find a way past Manchester City
Manchester City made Chelsea work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words at Chelsea training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Wesley Fofana is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
In brief
- The terraces The crowd has taken to Valentín Barco
- Market One of our own: Edward Hill joins the Chelsea first team
- Market Thomas Lawrence steps up from the Chelsea academy