There are statement results to kickstart a new era and this was only one in the sense that, after four consecutive defeats at Goodison Park, Chelsea won at what has seemed their bogey ground. For Clearlake Capital, their £4.25 billion investment should secure something more exciting and more emphatic than a stodgy, if hard-fought, triumph in a low-calibre game. For Todd Boehly, the co-owner who has doubled up as his own director of football and whose summer transfer deliberations have encompassed everyone from Cristiano Ronaldo to Carney Chukwuemeka, victory was secured by two throwbacks to past regimes.
Jorginho, once seen as Maurizio Sarri’s pet project, scored a penalty won by Ben Chilwell, the signing Frank Lampard championed more than any other. That it condemned Lampard to defeat felt the least of the cruelties for Chelsea’s record scorer. His past is not his greatest concern in a week when Everton have stumbled into the season defined by costly injuries.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin was ruled out in training, leaving Everton without a striker – even the departed Duncan Ferguson was in the Sky Sports studios, rather than offering an intimidating presence on the touchline - and the luckless Ben Godfrey was taken to hospital long before the final whistle, stretchered off with a seemingly serious injury.
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