David Sneyd
A CONFESSION to start with.
Noni Madueke is a name and player that was only vaguely familiar up until now.
He was floating somewhere in the Chelsea ether – avoiding detection between the lines or in the pocket, perhaps – but not really penetrating the consciousness.
This week also brought with it a realisation of his own pathway to west London. It has been hard to stay on top of things given the recent turnover at Stamford Bridge.
At one point at the start of this season there was a squad of over 40 players (an extra changing room required at the training ground) and 17 of them were either strikers or wingers. Madueke, it appears, is one of the better ones operating out wide.
He was player of the match in Chelsea’s 5-1 trouncing of bottom club Southampton on Wednesday, a result that put them out in front as top scorers in the Premier League (31) and moved them up to second place.
They were level with Arsenal on 28 points, seven behind leaders Liverpool and two clear of Manchester City in fourth. Champions League qualification should now be a minimum this season.
Cole Palmer scoffed at talk of a title challenge while Madueke, when asked about whether fans should be excited about what was to come under Enzo Maresca’s watch, smiled widely and said: “I got to Chelsea a couple years ago and it wasn’t always like this, so they should be really excited.”
Madueke joined Chelsea in the January transfer window of 2023. He was one of eight players signed in 30-day spending spree of €300 million, so maybe that explains why he slipped under the radar.
If he was like Conor Gallagher or Trevoh Chalobah and came through the ranks you can be sure he would have been sold by now for some of that sweet pure profit academy bounty to help fund a deal for a similar player from someone else’s academy.
Instead, he is actually one of those promising youngsters brought in who got a seven-and-a-half year contract. Madueke turns 23 in March and will probably earn fresh terms by the end of this season if he maintains his current form.
It’s all about protecting the value of the asset, of course, with a new cap of five years for amortisation of players.
 Chelsea's Cole Palmer. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo
Madueke’s price tag was a little over €30m, half of what the club paid for Mykhalio Mudryk and just a little shy of the €110m British record required to get Enzo Fernandez from Benfica during that same January window.
Madueke came from PSV Eindhoven, where he had spent five years after earlier being with Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur’s academies.
Spurs have enough going on right now ahead of their meeting with Chelsea today to be wistful of what might have been had Madueke not slipped away.
His emergence this season – he also played for England against the Republic of Ireland in the Nations League – just goes to show that when you sign enough talent and root around the back of the couch long enough your bound to pull out a €30m star.
Chelsea, somehow, have found a baffling sense of calm and respectability under Maresca. They seemed a bit of a rabble at the beginning when City cruised to a comfortable 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge on the opening day.
Raheem Sterling released a statement prior to kick-off after being left out of the squad – he was soon farmed out on loan to Arsenal – while there was considerable angst at the manner of how Gallagher was also jettisoned and forced to Atletico Madrid.
There was also the fact that Fernadez wore the captain’s armband just a few weeks after he was accused by teammate Wesley Fofana of “uninhibited racism” for his part in singing a racist song about France alongside his Argentina teammates.
No one would have envisaged that mess being cleaned up so swiftly.
Madueke was an unused substitute in that first game but as Maresca began to understand the lay of the land the England international became too important to ignore.
He will likely exceed 1,000 minutes of Premier League action for this season against Spurs and will do so in a team that, all of a sudden, you want to watch play for all the right reasons. They are exciting and sharp, with the thrilling Palmer a nonchalant talisman.
Previously, Chelsea attracted plenty of eyes in an almost voyeuristic way; to watch them was to witness the Frankenstein of modern football and all its vulgar ills.
Madueke is thriving and seems a prime example of a new respectability to what they are doing on the pitch.