The stories were all elsewhere on Sunday, but to a Chelsea side quietly looking like the real deal, that suits just fine.
As the Manchester City inquest, the Liverpool love-in and the Ruben Amorim honeymoon made headlines, Enzo Maresca’s men went about their business with the minimum of fuss, swatting Aston Villa aside with an authoritative 3-0 victory.
With goals from the prolific Nicolas Jackson and a revitalised Enzo Fernandez followed by a customary pearler from Cole Palmer - the kind of goal that, Maresca said afterwards, is what punters come and pay to see - this was not far off the perfect afternoon for the Blues, who a third of the way through the season sit third in the table, level on everything with second-placed Arsenal.
The downer, though, came on the hour, when Wesley Fofana was forced off injured. To that point, the young Frenchman had been superb, he and Levi Colwill taking on the physical threats of Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins as Maresca set his team up to press man-to-man.
Colwill followed Rogers’s every move, pushing way into midfield and occasionally even further than that, to be right on his international teammate’s back whenever he dropped deep to get on the ball.
At times, that left Fofana isolated against the pacy Watkins on halfway, but the 23-year-old is no slouch himself. There were, given the tactic’s inherent risk, inevitable moments when Watkins broke through, but Fofana claimed the bout on points, and by a convincing margin at that.
Maresca initially told Sky Sports he was unsure how long Fofana might be out, but arrived at his post-match press conference with a bleaker assessment, suggesting his 2024 could well be over.
“Unfortunately, it’s bad news,” Maresca explained. “It’s a hamstring problem. These kind of things require at least three, four, five weeks. In this moment, you lose ten games or 12 games. In the way he was playing, it’s a big loss for us.”
The timing is cruel, both for Chelsea, who kept their first clean sheet in eight Premier League matches, and for the player, who is at last establishing himself at Stamford Bridge after torrid luck with injuries.
Fofana missed half of his debut season with a serious knee problem and then the entirety of last term after tearing his ACL. Go back to his final season at Leicester and there were seven months on the sidelines with a broken leg thrown in for good measure.
Managers tend to avoid pairing two left-footed centre-backs which may open the door for Tosin Adarabioyo
Given that record, and the setbacks that usually occur after such absences, it is almost a surprise that Fofana’s comeback this season has gone as smoothly as it has: Wednesday night’s trip to Southampton will be the first league game he has missed all season, save when suspended at Liverpool in October.
Credit to Chelsea on that front for their sense in leaving the centre-back out of their Conference League squad this side of Christmas to manage his workload. He also pulled out of France squads during two of the autumn’s international breaks and did not feature when joining up with Didier Deschamps squad for the other. In all, since the season started on August 18, he has played only a dozen matches, at an average of one every nine days.
Posting on social media, Fofana was more upbeat in his self-diagnosis than Maresca had been, writing: “A slight muscle warning, as often happens after long injuries, nothing serious, the body is adjusting. We’ll come back stronger, as always. Trust your guy!”
In the interim, however long it proves, Maresca must find an alternative to a defensive partnership that has been his clear first choice throughout the campaign.
Benoit Badiashile replaced Fofana against Villa and started last weekend’s win at Leicester, but managers tend to have a phobia towards pairing two left-footed centre-backs and it may be that the door is ajar for Tosin Adarabioyo instead.
The good news, though, is that neither would be coming in cold, with Maresca again set to reap the benefits of having weekly Conference League football to keep his reserves match-sharp.
The fixture list, too, is kind. The trip to Tottenham next Sunday stands out, but otherwise Chelsea’s festive run includes away trips to four of the bottom six and home west London derbies against Brentford and Fulham.
