The moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars. Birds are flying backwards and the sun has risen in the west. A strange light pulses in the sky over Stamford Bridge. Most startlingly of all, eight years after signing from Augsburg for £14m, the Ghana left-back Baba Rahman has finally left Chelsea. Truly, a new age is upon us.
After the waves of signings last season, this summer of Todd Boehly’s Great Disruption was always going to be about consolidation and retrenchment. Quite aside from financial fair play issues, a first-team squad of 33, some of them forced to change in the corridor because the dressing room couldn’t accommodate them, was never viable.
