The clocks back, a quarter of the season done and the three expected contenders in formation at the head of the table, this was perhaps the weekend on which it no longer felt “too soon” to talk about the Premier League title race.
The battle for the top four, on the other hand, is still taking shape. Nottingham Forest are only two points off a certain Champions League place and, for all they have been impressive, will surely not stay there. Manchester United are 14th and… well, actually, they might.
Nonetheless, this was a notably good weekend for Chelsea, whose likeliest rivals - at the start of the season at least - all dropped points. United and Tottenham were beaten at West Ham and Crystal Palace, Aston Villa were pegged back at the death by Bournemouth, and Newcastle lost to Chelsea themselves, 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. On Monday morning, the Blues sit fifth, just a point behind Villa and Arsenal.
Nine games into the league season, Enzo Maresca’s side have lost only against Manchester City and Liverpool. In fact, since the turn of the year, take defeats to City, Liverpool and Arsenal out of the picture, and Chelsea have lost just one league game - 4-2 to Wolves, in February.
That record is a reminder that this was a team already trending in the right direction under Mauricio Pochettino, but one that undoubtedly has taken another swift step forward under Maresca this term.
Aside from winning (or at least, not losing) winnable matches, though, the thing that has so far marked Chelsea out ahead of their top-four rivals has been the electric form of their marquee forward players.
Goals for their centre-forward Nicolas Jackson and centre-of-everything Cole Palmer in Sunday’s win over Newcastle took their combined tally for goal involvements to a remarkable 21 in nine matches. For Newcastle, Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon (who missed Sunday’s game through injury) have managed five.
Jackson is delivering something unexpected in the shape of a ruthless streak ... time will tell whether this is a permanent evolution of a maturing player
Not every team has such an obvious headline pairing but for the sake of comparison, Tottenham’s two most productive players, Heung-min Son and James Maddison, have ten. Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rodgers have 11, but Villa have been able to rely on near-freakish contributions off the bench from Jhon Duran, worth nine points on their own.
United’s numbers are almost not worth mentioning: only Alejandro Garnacho has more than one league goal, only Bruno Fernandes more than one assist.
Palmer’s output is by now almost taken for granted, but in the style of his performances it is clear that, scarily, the 22-year-old is still getting better. He insists he is not putting pressure on himself to match last season’s remarkable numbers but already he is well on track.
Jackson, though, is delivering something unexpected in the shape of a ruthless streak. The generous interpretation of the Senegalese’s chaotic form at the start of his Chelsea career was that he was a forward often in the right place, but who needed a hatful of chances to put one away.
Sunday’s game, however, was the second time already this season in which the 23-year-old has started a league game and scored with his only shot, something which did not happen once in the entirety of his debut campaign.
It was not the most difficult chance, laid on brilliantly by Palmer and Pedro Neto, but you have seen Jackson miss far simpler ones. His first-time finish followed similarly clinical efforts in the defeat at Liverpool last weekend, and two in the victory at West Ham before the international break.
Time will tell whether this is a permanent evolution of a maturing player or something of a fortunate fad. It was only at the start of last month that a series of costly misses in the 1-1 home draw with Crystal Palace put the spotlight on Chelsea’s failure to secure an upgrade this summer.
But look at the Premier League’s top-five for goal involvements so far this season. Three - Erling Haaland, Mohamed Salah and Bukayo Saka - are the attacking talismen for the three title likely title contenders. The others - Palmer and Jackson - both play for Chelsea, and that is a huge edge in the race for the top four.
