Morning:
8°c
What we might portentously introduce as the Ron Gourlay era kicked off at Stamford Bridge just as the preposterous Peter Kenyon's had ended, with Chelsea powering to a home win.
Mr Gourlay, a stolid and dependable type judging by his brief cameo on Sky Sports gazing stolidly down from the stand, doesn't officially become chief executive until 31 October, and Halloween seems a ghoulishly apt starting date. So Byzantine are the internal politics at Chelsea that even the key players seldom have much clue whether they are about to be tricked or treated.
If all the recent excitement at the Bridge has been generated off the pitch, that's in part because the team's form on it has been tediously impeccable.
Yesterday's swatting of Tottenham's pretensions to join the elite disabused no one of the sense that the title is theirs for the taking.
If the match was disappointing, the reason was one of timing. As the hors d'oeuve before Manchester United's scintillating 4-3 defeat of Manchester City, it would have been perfect. Served up immediately after the astonishing rich lavish banquet at Old Trafford, it felt a bit meat and potatoes.
For all that, it buzzed along engagingly, and had its moment of controversy. Spurs started the stronger, breaking with speed and precision, but even had Jermaine Defoe scored when cleverly put clear by Wilson Palacios, it might have been almost irrelevant against a side that only engages overdrive when it is trailing.
Instead, it fell to the Blues to score with a goal memorable for the role reversal as weeny Ashley Cole dove to head in a wickedly whipped cross from Didier Drogba. Operating frequently as a right winger, Drogba was superb. Even his mandatory piece of play-acting was a delight, as captain John Terry wandered over to coax him back to his feet with a matronly "There, there, you'll live".
When eventually the Ivorian narcissist was genuinely hurt, the sight of him departing on a stretcher was bewildering (certainly more so than that of poor old Ledley King hobbling off). But the world's greatest poker player Phil Ivey, an unlikely Las Vegan presence in the crowd yesterday, would confirm that even the most relentless bluffers sometimes get dealt a real hand.
By then, the match was on the slab, done in by a few minutes shortly before the hour that might have seen it tied at 1-1, but left it stone dead at 2-0. Spurs will squeal like stuck pigs about Howard Webb's failure to give the penalty when Ricardo Carvalho clipped Robbie Keane's ankle, and understandably so.
Keane chased him asking why, if the ref thought he dived, he wasn't booking him. But it was clear how, from his position, Mr Webb might have mistaken Keane's delayed and languid descent for a stumble.
Soon after that, Michael Ballack made it two, before Drogba cashed in the luck he earned with an exquisite first touch to capitalize on a defensive mishap. The scoreline flattered the home side, because by no means had Spurs meekly succumbed. If they looked a touch lightweight, very few teams will avoid that fate at the ground of a formidably strong, compact unit with a fearsome work rate and no obvious flaw.
With Joe Cole and Yuri Zhirkov to return from injuries, there is much more to come from them in the way of guile and variety. The gloomy thought for their rivals, among whom Spurs palpably do not belong, is that Chelsea look perfectly able to stroll to the title just as they are.
