Chelsea beat Lincoln this week, which you might have seen. It was about as unremarkable as Carabao Cup third-round ties get but it has stuck with me for the following reason: when watching the graphics that revealed the starting line-up, I made that audible noise of surprised recognition for no fewer than four players selected by Enzo Maresca. “Oh yeah, him”.
There’s maybe a point there about the scope of my short-to-medium term memory but the one I’m actually going to make is this; over the last five years Chelsea have spent about £750m - roughly the GDP of most Caribbean island nations - and came out feeling exactly the same as a weekday evening seven-a-side team.
