Fulham will start the new Premier League season by having the neighbours round. The first Monday Night Football of 2026-27 takes Chelsea down the road to Craven Cottage, where they’ll play in a derby that will do little to indicate what’s to come for either team in the next nine months.
Chelsea have more tangible targets than local bragging rights in a rivalry so cosmopolitan that ‘local’ doesn’t mean much anyway. They’ve been going after those goals like they mean it, up to and including a British transfer record move for the hottest property in English football.
