Premier League: Wolves 2 Chelsea 6 (Cunha 27, Larsen 45; Jackson 2, Palmer 45, Madueke 49, 58, 63, Felix 80)
Chelsea’s business planning and human resource practices may confound all but their blue-sky thinkers but that does not preclude them providing great entertainment. Perhaps that is where the method in the perceived madness lies: if you can’t always be good, be fun, be box office. And this was a red-letter day for the laptop gurus who have constructed their squad.
Amid that stockpiling of 191 years of contracts across 42 players, genuine, high-class talent abounds. Cole Palmer, with a goal and three assists, looked the player of last season in a game that had threatened to get away from Chelsea in the first half. In the second, their attacking players cut Wolves to ribbons, visibly enjoying themselves as they feasted on an opponent who look a far lesser proposition than last season.
Noni Madueke was booed from his first kick for his late-night travel Instagram guide to Wolverhampton – “Every thing about this place is s**t” – and responded with a 14-minute hat-trick, each laid on by Palmer, playmaker supreme. In celebrating his third, Madueke hailed Palmer as the source of his keeping the match ball. For this week at least, though the transfer window will soon shift focus, Chelsea could celebrate being a living, breathing football team rather than the trading platform they are derided as, their new manager delighted by his team’s play.
His team selection had fitted rather comfortably with the policies of Chelsea’s BlueCo ownership. While Raheem Sterling pursues his individual training plan away from the first-team squad, Mykhailo Mudryk, a winger of far less consistency, started. Another project player, Romeo Lavia, was missing with a hamstring injury, muscle problems having wrecked last season for him.
The concurrent Nicolas Jackson project – making a sellable player out of the rawest of materials – continues and, if every Chelsea player has a price, his will be increased by his early goal, nodded in after Palmer’s corner and an inadvertent flick from Matheus Cunha. The striker would also play a key part in Palmer’s goal.
Pedro Neto, Wolves’ star man when fit last season, sat on the Chelsea bench until half-time. Will Gary O’Neil come to rue the sale of Neto and Maximilian Kilman, his former defensive leader? The signs of a second-half collapse were unpromising. Both were necessary sales as Wolves attempt to toe the line on profit and sustainability. There was plenty of attacking quality in the first half but nothing like a watertight defence. For their first home match of the season they had begun with zest. Yerson Mosquera, the Colombian who is Kilman’s replacement, making his home debut, flashed a highly sinkable header wide.
That began an intense period of Wolves pressure, Cunha’s head-down running to the fore. The Brazilian looked to have completed an end-to-end move when slotting in Jørgen Strand Larsen’s pass, only for offside to flag. VAR, the great Satan of Molineux, showed the decision to be correct. With Palmer scuffing a shot, Madueke forcing a save from José Sá, and Wolves winger Jean-Ricner Bellegarde stumbling in reaching for a cross, Mudryk making an eye-catching solo slalom down the middle, the action appeared relentless, neither midfield providing any protection. When the opposition is bearing down on them, Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo continue to look like the midfield odd couple. For Wolves, Mario Lemina was outstanding when making forward runs and zinging passes from the base but similarly struggled to curb opposing attacks.
A case in point of that first-half pandemonium, Wolves’s first goal: Rayan Aït-Nouri skated through Chelsea’s underbelly once Caicedo had lost the ball to set up Cunha’s equaliser. No flag this time, though Rob Jones, the referee, had to intervene when Jackson and Nunes had an altercation as the restart began.
Wolves and O’Neil smelled blood and looked for a swift second. And yet Chelsea went back ahead, their goal route-one tinged with class. Robert Sánchez, the goalkeeper, launched the ball to Jackson and his flick was lobbed by Palmer over a despairing Sá, Chelsea’s star man finishing – and celebrating – with his customary iciness. Could they protect that lead? Aït-Nouri’s free-kick, Bellegarde’s flick and Strand Larsen’s volley provided the answer and a home-debut strike. All square at the break after a 45 minutes-plus of high-octane chaos.
The second half saw Chelsea continue to thrill in attack but Wolves unable to stage a reprise. Neto’s arrival at the break brought warm applause from most Wolves fans, though the occasional boo greeted his touches on the ball.
It was on the opposite wing from which the damage was wreaked. Three times Palmer played in Madueke to cut in shoot past Sá, unlucky with a deflection for the first, and poor for the second, left unprotected for the third.
Madueke made sure to enjoy his celebrations in front of the Chelsea fans, and Aït-Nouri, exposed by each of those strikes, was soon subbed off. Insult was added to injury when Lemina thrashed in a volley, only for VAR, the practice the Wolves hierarchy moved to ban, to rule it out. Further pain ensued as Neto suppled his first Chelsea assist. Jõao Félix, whose return to west London is another head-scratcher, slotted in the last goal of a rout few saw coming but many will have enjoyed. – Guardian
