The Chelsea Chronicle
Match23 Jan 2038
Whatever happens, Chelsea do not lose
16 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Match25 Jan 2038
Chelsea refuse to drop out of the race
Position 1, 50 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad25 Jan 2038
Filip Jörgensen keeps Chelsea in it on his own
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Player ratings25 Jan 2038
Age has not caught Cole Palmer yet — 8.82
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.82 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Market25 Jan 2038
Wolverhampton 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.
Squad25 Jan 2038
Tempers go at Chelsea
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.
Market25 Jan 2038
Paul Bailey hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Chelsea can pretend not to have heard.
Squad25 Jan 2038
Wesley Fofana is carrying Chelsea
13 goals and a season average of 7.43. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad25 Jan 2038
Words at Chelsea training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moisés Caicedo 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
- Market Yisa Alao is on his way
- Market Everton watching Roméo Lavia
- Match Nobody could stop scoring