Thirty-one seconds. That is how long Xabi Alonso had to wait for his first goal as Chelsea manager, and it is the fastest goal scored on an opening weekend in the thirty-four year history of the Premier League.
Cole Palmer found Joao Pedro, the Brazilian flicked the ball over Bernd Leno, and Craven Cottage had barely settled into its seats. What followed was considerably less comfortable than that beginning suggested, but Chelsea held on to win 3-2 and Alonso has his first three points.
Palmer, back to being Palmer
The story of the night was not the result. It was the man who set up the first goal and scored the third.
Palmer missed out on England’s World Cup squad after a season disrupted by injury, and there were reasonable questions about whether the player who had once looked like the most inventive attacker in the league would return in the same form. On the evidence of Monday night, he has.
He had a hand in almost everything Chelsea did well. His eleven involvements in attacking sequences, ten defensive actions and seven progressive actions were all match-leading totals, which is an unusual combination for a player generally thought of as a luxury creator. He was, by some distance, the best footballer on the pitch.
His goal came four minutes into the second half, Joao Pedro holding the ball up before feeding him, and Palmer angling a finish through Leno’s legs.
“It was a difficult season with injuries and whatnot, but through the summer and since I’ve been back I’ve worked extra hard,” he told Sky Sports afterwards. “I know the talent I’ve got so I can put in performances like that.”
The record signing delivers
Chelsea’s second goal was the one that will reassure the accountants.
Maxence Lacroix, signed from Crystal Palace this summer, drove down the right and cut the ball back for Morgan Rogers in the forty-first minute. Rogers arrived from Aston Villa for a reported £117 million, making him Chelsea’s record signing, and he made no mistake.
Two new signings combining for a goal in the opening fixture is the sort of thing that buys a manager patience. All three of Alonso’s front trio scored, which for a side that spent much of last season struggling to convert is the most encouraging detail of the night.
The problem in goal
Fulham’s two goals both came through Robert Sanchez, and neither will look good on a review.
Josh King levelled in the twenty-fourth minute with a powerful drive that beat the Chelsea goalkeeper at his near post. It was struck well, but it was saveable. Then in the fifty-fourth, Sanchez could only parry a Timothy Castagne shot into the path of Gonzalo Garcia, who headed in on his league debut after arriving from Real Madrid.
Sanchez’s position as Chelsea’s first choice has been questioned for some time, and Mike Penders has now returned from sister club Racing Strasbourg. Alonso declined to criticise him publicly. “It’s day one,” he said, which is the correct answer and also not quite a vote of confidence.
Fulham had a genuine chance to equalise in the seventy-eighth minute when Antonee Robinson chipped over a stranded Sanchez and watched it drift wide.
The Indian angle
For the enormous Chelsea following across India, this was the first proper look at a project that has been assembled at considerable expense and considerable speed.
The 20:00 UK kick-off landed at half past midnight in India, which is the familiar tax on following English football from here. Anyone who stayed up got the most entertaining fixture of the opening round, a Palmer performance worth the lost sleep, and the fastest opening-weekend goal in the competition’s history.
There is a wider point about where the Premier League’s money is going. Rogers cost £117 million from Aston Villa. Chelsea have also brought in Lacroix, Danny Welbeck, Jordan Henderson and others, while Tottenham have spent past £300 million and Manchester City have agreed to sell Savinho for £85 million. The English top flight is operating at a level of expenditure that makes the Indian Super League’s entire annual outlay look like a rounding error, and it is worth keeping that in view when the same broadcast rights are sold into both markets.
Two Spaniards, one debut each
There was a neat symmetry to the dugouts at Craven Cottage.
Alonso was making his competitive debut for Chelsea. Opposite him stood Alvaro Arbeloa, his former teammate at both Liverpool and Spain, taking charge of his first Premier League match with Fulham and having briefly succeeded Alonso as Real Madrid manager last season.
Arbeloa’s side had 61 per cent possession and lost. “We are not happy because we lost a game that we wanted to win,” he said. “I think we played a good game, we deserved more, but football is not about what you deserve, it is about what you take.”
The underlying numbers back him up only partly. Chelsea had sixteen shots to nine, six on target to four, and an expected goals figure of 1.7 to Fulham’s 1.1. A 3-2 result was about right.
What comes next
Enzo Fernandez was loudly booed by the home supporters when he came on midway through the second half, a reaction linked to persistent speculation about a move to Manchester City. That is a situation Alonso will need to resolve before it becomes a distraction.
Chelsea also have injuries to manage. Moises Caicedo and new full-back Marco Palestra were both unavailable, and Alonso will want them back to give a thrilling but leaky side some structure. Palmer picked up a knock late on that will be assessed.
Winning away on day one, in a derby, with your front three all scoring, is close to the ideal start. Conceding twice to goalkeeping errors in the same match is the reminder that this is a long way from finished.