The updates began filtering through about 20 minutes after the final whistle at Stamford Bridge and confirmed the most important news of the day: that Jesse Derry was conscious and talking after being taken to hospital midway through their 3-1 defeat by Nottingham Forest.
Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho had both picked up knocks in training on Sunday to throw Chelsea’s preparation for the game into disarray, but interim head coach Calum McFarlane won’t have thought twice about placing his faith in the 18-year-old.
Derry will have prepared for a baptism of fire as he made his first start in senior football. What he won’t have expected is that his involvement would end by being knocked out by an accidental head-on-head collision and taken to hospital.
It was in the 45th minute when Derry and Forest’s Zach Abbott contested the same ball and clashed heads, with Derry requiring nine minutes of treatment before being given oxygen and stretchered off.
Following the completion of a dismal defeat that confirmed once and for all that Chelsea cannot finish in the Premier League’s top five this season, news that Derry was doing well and “undergoing precautionary checks” was a welcome relief.
On a day when a mentally fragile team were again so easily knocked off course in their own back yard, Derry placed himself in a category with only Joao Pedro, scorer of that splendid late bicycle kick, among Chelsea players who pulled their socks up - or down, in Derry’s case - and worked tirelessly at taking calculated risks throughout.
“I’m pleased with Jesse’s performance, I thought he performed well while he was on,” said McFarlane. Derry had scored 10 goals in 16 games for Chelsea’s Under-21s when McFarlane was the manager, so he had shown already that he could perform under his watch.
Derry had previously made substitute cameos in FA Cup wins at Hull and Wrexham this term but his Premier League debut was also a full debut for the attacker, son of former QPR midfielder Shaun Derry.
Chelsea won a competitive race to sign Jesse Derry ahead of a host of European giants last summer after his academy contract at Crystal Palace expired.
There were embraces from Robert Sanchez and Moises Caicedo as two of Chelsea’s more experienced players wished him well just before kick-off against Forest.
His confidence and front-footed tendencies were detectable right from the off. It was early in the game that he kept the ball from going out of play and within two passes Enzo Fernandez had struck against the post.
Derry’s display was a point of encouragement on an afternoon that left Chelsea fans bereft of any other reasons for optimism
While Chelsea’s defence was all at sea, Derry was enjoying himself, attempting - and failing - a Zlatan Ibrahimovic tribute act with an acrobatic volley that flew over the bar.
The left winger then slipped in between Abbott and Dilane Bakwa as he jinked into the box, and shortly after he shot through Abbott’s legs, forcing Matz Sels into a simple save.
The Forest fans were keen to give the youngster a testing afternoon in more ways than one, serenading him with well-humoured chants of “You’re gonna cry in a minute” as he briefly replaced a lost contact lens on the pitch.
Yet a respectful round of applause from all corners reverberated right around the stadium when he was stretchered off following his injury just before the interval.
The head clash earned Chelsea a penalty, so the teen’s impact on his very first Premier League outing would have been even greater had the off-form Cole Palmer converted from the spot rather than seen his effort saved.
Derry left a physical game hospitalised through a freak accident but it had certainly not demonstrated that he cannot compete at this level.
On the contrary. Thiago Silva and Thomas Tuchel, watching on at the Bridge, had far brighter days during their stints at Chelsea than the current offering, yet they will have been impressed by Derry, whose display was a point of encouragement on an afternoon that left fans bereft of any other reasons for optimism about what the future holds.
