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Hello! Well, we did tell you not to take your eyes off Chelsea…
Coming up:
🐺 Madueke gets teeth into Wolves
🦸♂️ Raya’s Superman save
✋ Players that need a move
📺 Reviewing Ronaldo on YouTube
Chelsea score six as they click on the pitch
Amid the transfer madness, an initial list of 53 players (though there are fewer now), the enormous increase in the canteen budget (probably), the ostracising of big-name players and an early contender for blooper of the season (sorry, Marc Guiu) we all forgot to ask; can Chelsea actually be good at football?
A 6-2 win at Wolves, with Chelsea scoring 18 per cent of their total Premier League away goals last season (33), suggested that when it clicks, Enzo Maresca’s team can be pretty tasty.
This game was officially nuts. Four goals in the first half, four in the second, the woodwork was smashed, goals were disallowed, it was played like a basketball match for the first hour and there was beef. Plenty of beef.
Cole Palmer did Cole Palmer things with one sumptuous goal and three assists and yet he was still upstaged by Noni Madueke, who blitzed a 14-minute second-half hat-trick. Groundhog Day is meant to be February 2 but Madueke’s goals, all set up by Palmer, were strikingly similar.
This was Vintage Barclays, Prem heritage, call it what you like, it was damn good fun…
(David Rogers/Getty Images)
… unless you were a home fan who had to suffer the indignity of Wolverhampton being besmirched by the bloke who then scored a hat-trick.
Madueke accidentally posted on his public Instagram account (he meant to post it privately) that “everything about this place is s***”. He apologised later, saying: “I’m sure Wolverhampton is a nice town and I’m sorry.” Everyone vehemently disagreed with his statement. It’s a city, mate. I know, I grew up there.
Look, Noni, I’m sure your hometown of Barnet is incomparably beautiful, but come on, me and you, international break, I’ll show you around.
Art gallery in the morning and a stroll around West Park, hop over the border to the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley, then to Bilston for the finest orange chips (look them up) you’ve ever had in your life, an afternoon touring the stadium and the magnificent Wolves Museum, then a curry in the Bilash, head to the Civic for a gig and end the night singing Hi Ho Silver Lining in the Hogshead (they do six Jagerbombs for £15 but we’ll drink responsibly).
Get ready for a frantic few days
Who knows what the Chelsea squad will look like at the end of the window, but there is no doubt frantic days lie ahead in terms of what could be a furious fire sale.
Romelu Lukaku, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell are just four of the many, many more players they need to shift. If you want to know about amortisation, book value and a pretty grim picture of the globulous task at hand, Liam Twomey’s got you covered.
The first comment underneath from Deepak D made me laugh: “This is the positivity that I was looking for after the 6-2 win. Absolutely spot on.”
Just another day in Chelsea land.
🎙️ We discussed the impact of Chelsea’s win plus clinical victories for Tottenham and Arsenal on The Totally Football Show.
News round-up
📲 The Athletic‘s live blog has the latest transfer news
Keep It Simple: Raya makes remarkable save, Pickford shows flip side
Who’d be a goalkeeper, eh? Well, David Raya, clearly, after his logic-defying save (above) set up Arsenal for a big early-season win at Aston Villa.
Elsewhere this weekend, though, dithering howlers from Everton’s Jordan Pickford (below) and Ipswich Town’s Arijanet Muric — as they took too long to pick out passes to team-mates after receiving possession — helped consign their clubs to heavy away defeats at Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City respectively.
It showcased the risks and rewards of entrusting your ‘keeper with a ball at their feet, something our tactics boffin John Muller explores here as he outlines the role of the modern-day ‘keeper-back’. Anyone got Jordan and Arijanet’s email addresses?
Sancho saga: Forward’s future back on the agenda at Man Utd
Jadon Sancho transfer speculation seems to be an incessant part of the football zeitgeist. Seemingly surplus to requirements at Manchester United yet again, can he find a home before the deadline on Friday? Juventus in Italy’s Serie A could be an option, as Laurie Whitwell and James Horncastle explain.
A year is a long time in football and other players who played important roles for their clubs last season — including Liverpool’s Joe Gomez, Jakub Kiwior of Arsenal and West Ham United’s James Ward-Prowse — are on the fringes of the action now. Could they move this week? Elias Burke is here to ponder their futures.
Around The Athletic FC
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
Quiz answer
It was a belter on Friday. We asked you:
Which five pairs of team-mates have played the most games together in Premier League history?
Congratulations to the brainboxes who got the below.
Jamie Carragher & Steven Gerrard (383 games together); Paul Scholes & Ryan Giggs (358); Frank Lampard & John Terry (351); Gary Neville & Paul Scholes (302); Jussi Jaaskelainen & Kevin Nolan (300).
Catch a match (Times ET/UK)
Serie A: Verona vs Juventus, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+/TNT Sports, OneFootball.
La Liga: Villarreal vs Celta Vigo, 3.30pm/8.30pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports 1.
(Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images))
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