Marked for Samuel Mitchell
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout17 May 2027
“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.
Squad17 May 2027
Cole Palmer 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.
Squad17 May 2027
Raffaele Spanò arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Raffaele Spanò has, at Chelsea, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Loan watch17 May 2027
“I watch every Chelsea game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Charlton Athletic runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
The dugout17 May 2027
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The dugout17 May 2027
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Emiliano Martínez is on it.
Market17 May 2027
Raffaele Spanò is 20, and Chelsea have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad17 May 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Raffaele Spanò commits to Chelsea for another 3 years.
Market17 May 2027
Cole Palmer linked with a move away
The name of Cole Palmer keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Chelsea say nothing, which says plenty.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match1 May 2027
Bragging rights belong to Chelsea for another year after a 2‑1 win over Tottenham in front of a full house.
Squad3 May 2027
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 6 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Score against anybody else and it is a goal. Score against them and it is a story with your name in it for a decade, and Chelsea supporters have already started telling it.
Squad3 May 2027
At 20, Geovany Quenda is already the best thing here
An average of 7.00 in a first team he is several years too young for. Chelsea have something, and by now the whole division has noticed.
Squad3 May 2027
A falling-out at Chelsea
Ibrahim Rabbaj and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The terraces3 May 2027
At 20 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Loan watch3 May 2027
12 shut-outs in 27 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Filip Jörgensen has been having a lot of them.
Squad3 May 2027
Danny Welbeck falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout3 May 2027
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Samuel Mitchell, and the manager let it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The dugout5 Apr 2027
Samuel Mitchell: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Chelsea have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Loan watch5 Apr 2027
19 shut-outs in 32 games. A goalkeeper’s loan is judged on the afternoons when nothing happened at all, and Gabriel Słonina has been having a lot of them.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Cole Palmer was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Defences have started doubling up on Cole Palmer
19 goals and a season average of 7.22 will do that. The space he used to find has gone; he keeps scoring anyway, which is the mark of the real thing.
Match3 Apr 2027
Nobody wants to play Chelsea right now
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Match3 Apr 2027
Bournemouth made Chelsea work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑1 at the end and the table does not ask how.
The terraces5 Apr 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Jamie Gittens has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.