Marked for Teddy Sharman-Lowe
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
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.
Match10 Oct 2026
4 matches without a win for Chelsea
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Chelsea are no longer polite ones.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Reece James 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Teddy Sharman-Lowe is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Filip Jörgensen has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
“I watch every Chelsea game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Volos NPS runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
Match10 Oct 2026
A 1‑1 draw with Sunderland leaves the dressing room somewhere between relief and regret.
Loan watch12 Oct 2026
4 appearances away from home and 7 goals to show for them. Every one of them makes next summer's conversation a little more expensive.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 37. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Moisés Caicedo 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.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Wesley Fofana 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.
Match12 Sep 2026
A 2‑1 win over Burnley, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Squad14 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Danny Welbeck
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match5 Sep 2026
4‑1, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The match ball belongs to Dries De Ketelaere, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad7 Sep 2026
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.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Eduardo Henrique has just signed for Chelsea, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Words at Chelsea training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Reece James 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.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Marked 9.37 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Cole Palmer at his very best
Marked 8.30. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Chelsea.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
Chelsea shop where it costs nothing
Eduardo Henrique signs, and the fee column stays empty. Deals like this look small in July and clever by March — or they are never mentioned again.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match29 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑5 by Liverpool, and beaten everywhere it matters. The inquest starts on the training pitch on Monday morning.
Squad31 Aug 2026
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.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Gabriel Słonina is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 22 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Enzo Fernández
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom31 Aug 2026
The manager kept them in and said what needed saying. A response is expected on Saturday, and if it does not come the questions move upstairs.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Beaten 5 times, with 3 saves for company. Goalkeepers carry these scorelines on their record whoever actually caused them, which is the quiet injustice of the job.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ten men and a goalkeeper behind him, and it still finished in the net. He knew before anybody told him, and nobody at Chelsea needed to.
Market31 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Chelsea will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Market31 Aug 2026
The Levi Colwill story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Levi Colwill signs something — a contract at Chelsea or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.