With 61 minutes gone at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as Cole Palmer buried his first penalty kick of the game to make the score 2-2, Marc Cucurella could be seen banging himself violently in the head with both hands close to the left touchline, curls flying cinematically, like a loveable dog in an advert for floor detergent.
When Palmer scored his sublime top‑corner zinger against Southampton last week Cucurella had clenched his fists and howled, thrusting his hips pomp‑rock style. Palmer clearly has a visceral effect on him. And the afternoon belonged to both men here, a 4-3 come-from-behind London derby win dominated by the twin qualities that mark out Enzo Maresca’s team – while he will of course deny it – as genuine title contenders.
Most obviously Palmer brings the craft. Mohamed Salah remains the most effective creative player in the league. But Palmer really is something else, a mobile brain, entirely sui generis in his ability to watch and learn and invent the game in front of him. Here he seemed to be decoding Spurs as the first half wore on, finding weak spots, deciding where to stand, where to start his passing sequences.
What Cucurella offers is spirit. This is a footballer with a hilarious degree of Main Character Energy. As he roamed into midfield in the second half because, yes, why not, you felt Cucurella should basically play everywhere all the time, passing to other Cucurellas, goading opposition Cucurellas, walking off arm in arm with his Cucurella counterpart at the end.
Chelsea is a happy pirate ship these days, a bunch of billion‑dollar desperadoes shunted out into the lights, but all running in the same direction right now. Sport can often be this simple. For all the DNA chat and the philosophy waffle, football is basically feelings, energy, colours, an illusion of design created by winning.
Chelsea are now second in the league. It isn’t a stretch to suggest they could win it this season. There’s a new world order out there. Manchester City look terrified of their own shadows. The old certainties are crumbling. David Hasselhoff is on top of that concrete wall, sledgehammer raised. Chelsea have arguably the best squad in the league. It seems there is one key advantage to splurging vast amounts on quality young players. You do end up with a lot of quality young players.
Plus they have Cucurella’s winning energy. He is a very funny footballer in many ways, from the resemblance to a renaissance fresco depiction of a mischievous fruit seller, to the way he runs, a kind of power waddle that is both convincing and relentlessly theatrical.
At times the first half here was Total Cucurella, on a day that kicked off with not one but two face-planting slips that led directly to Chelsea going 2-0 down. There are few things in any sport more vital, more bracing than someone falling over. Cucurella falling over? This is box office.
Slip No 1 came five minutes in, Cucurella’s foot giving way leaving him utterly splayed on the turf. Brennan Johnson took the ball, crossed low and Dominic Solanke finished expertly. Within minutes the same thing happened. Cucurella fell over, Dejan Kulusevski carried the ball forward and scored.
Cucurella’s response was brilliantly defiant. Crushed? Me? Actually no. Instead he came stalking across to the touchline, flung his boots off in a funk, marched back out, and provided the assist to make it 2-1.
Really it was just a pass inside to Jadon Sancho, who produced one of those sequences where the game suddenly seems too small, too easy, finding so much space and time in the middle of that noise and heat just by dropping a shoulder. Sancho isn’t super quick, but he has a deceptive hyper-speed mode, a Millennium Falcon gear where the air just seems to open up around him. From there the ball was zinged into the far corner.
At which point, 2-1 down away from home, Chelsea were always winning this game. North London had been in the grip of the nationwide meteorological norovirus all afternoon, whipped by a face-scraping wind that seems somehow to come from all directions, one of those days where this really does feel like a narrow island in an unfriendly sea.
This was a chaotic game for long periods, resembling one of those traditional Derbyshire free‑for-alls where people spend three hours outside a pub wrestling over a sheep’s bladder. But by the end Spurs had been reeled in by opponents who simply have better players, better options, a wider range of gears.
Palmer made the key third goal for Enzo Fernández with a wonderful twirling dribble. By way of response Timo Werner came on for Spurs and did quite a lot of weird things, throwing his arms around, running very fast, taking clanky first touches. It is tempting to suggest Werner should have become a sprinter. But he would probably have ended up in the triple jump pit.
Cucurella and Palmer came off with the game all but won on 90 minutes, Cucurella high fiving everyone on or even close to the Chelsea bench, like a celebrated thespian humbly celebrating his own masterwork. It felt like a key afternoon for this team. They have as much of a shot as anyone right now.
