This report has resolved to leave all mention of transfer fees, business models and ownership structures to one side for a change and concentrate solely on the football. And the news there is that Chelsea can attack but not defend.
You slip into Stamford Bridge to admire a potentially immortal Chelsea front three and end up being bemused by their back four. Perhaps responsibility needs to be spread more widely. Without Moisés Caicedo in the hunter-gatherer role, Chelsea’s disorder starts in midfield. The departmental imbalance between front and back is not only undermining the artistry of João Pedro, Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers but already casting doubt on their chances of winning the title.
When the fixture list emerged Xabi Alonso probably marked Hull at home in mid-September as a nice three-point pick-up. He couldn’t have known that the Championship play-off winners would go four games unbeaten in their return to the Premier League and display in posh London so much swagger.
“We’re going to win the league,” their supporters sang as they reached half-time top of the league and finished the game in third – one place ahead of Chelsea. Mohamed Belloumi, who scored both goals, has made a name for himself for his creativity in a side not averse to physicality. “He’s already showed he can play at this level, he can make a difference,” said Hull’s manager Sergej Jakirović, who confirmed that Nobel Mendy was taken to hospital with concussion after a clash of heads.
Alonso’s pre-match remark that Chelsea need “better balance” felt like an understatement by the time his team reached 20 league games without a clean sheet. They’ve conceded nine in four league matches and three to Leeds on Wednesday night in a Carabao Cup match they managed to win 6-3.
First, the good news – the part Chelsea fans could cling to as they left, grumpily. Chelsea have scored in the first, fourth, second and seventh minute of their four Premier League fixtures. It was Rogers who extended the pattern here after Palmer moved the ball to João Pedro, who then set up Rogers: a perfect illustration of the growing potency of the trio.
Rogers, who joined this summer, has three goals and an assist. João Pedro, who was given the No 9 shirt this season, has 26 goals and 11 assists in 58 games since signing from Brighton. And it was a pass from Palmer that allowed him to smash in Chelsea’s equaliser. The three are already working as a collective.
Stickers have started appearing advertising a spoof firm called “J.P. Morgan Attacking Solutions – Joao, Palmer, Morgan,” which doesn’t quite work as comedy, but illustrates the optimism felt by fans at a club often accused of scattergun buying.
The Premier League has served up many thrilling attacking trios. But most have featured a centre forward flanked by two natural wide men. Chelsea’s trident is made up of a No 9 who roamed all over the pitch at his previous club, Brighton, and crucially two attacking midfielders who could easily be categorised as No 10s: Rogers and Palmer, who can support João Pedro centrally or break wide. Both have many of the skills of wingers.
José Mourinho’s first title-winning Chelsea side had Damien Duff and Arjen Robben either side of Didier Drogba. In Arsène Wenger’s finest Arsenal team, Thierry Henry could look left and right to Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg. At Manchester United, Ryan Giggs and David Beckham were the wingers to Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Ruud van Nistelrooy and others.
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But the Chelsea blend is an intriguing variation on that theme of speed wide and precision through the middle. It came about partly because Palmer leaned on Rogers to join him at Stamford Bridge: a rare example of a team’s star player arguing for more investment in his own sphere of influence. The signs are that Palmer should be given a recruitment bonus for helping to attract a team-mate who brings left-right balance to the art they both pursue.
None of it means much though if Jorrel Hato misreads a high bouncing cross from Hull’s Ryan Giles and allows it to drop to Belloumi, who smashed it in (Hato was punished by being hooked at half-time). Nor can Chelsea take radiant attacking to the bank if Emi Martínez misses a corner and Belloumi scores for a second time.
Nobody would have predicted that Argentina’s 2022 World Cup winning goalkeeper would make such an unconvincing start here; least of all that he would look so unsure of himself. Two fumbles from routine shots in the second half were evidence of the self-doubt that’s exacerbating the weak defending around his penalty box.
“I hope one day you say it was a boring game and we won,” Alonso told reporters. “We are better attacking than defending. I don’t like it. We need to do much better.” Hull on the other hand could hardly have dreamed of such synchronicity throughout their team.
Photograph by Chris Lee/Chelsea FC/Getty Images