This game went from 0 to 100 even before kick-off, thanks to Noni Madueke’s quickly deleted social media post in which he called the city of Wolverhampton the worst place on earth or something. The city should send him some flowers for restoring all that local pride!

But it was Chelsea who scored first, after just two minutes, Nico Jackson nodding the ball in at the far post after Cole Palmer’s corner had been headed home at the near post.

Chelsea tried to exert some control over proceedings (probably) but it didn’t really work despite some decent passing sequences. So instead we embraced chaos ball like last season and threatened repeatedly, including Palmer missing an easy chance after some good work from Madueke on the right wing.

Unfortunately, the problems in midfield and defence from last season were also present and after an unfortunate loss of possession in their own half, Wolves equalised just before the half hour mark.

Chelsea responded with a goal of the season in the 45th minute (a brilliant pass from Jackson and a superb finish from Palmer), but Wolves still had time to equalise from a set-piece at the end of six minutes of added time.

Within a few minutes of the first half we were already ahead, and of course that had to be Madueke. He had really tested Ait-Nouri (and Ait-Nouri did the same to us on the other side).

And then it became a Palmer and Madueke show, with the former setting up the latter to score not once but twice in the space of five minutes as Chelsea tore Wolves apart like an apex predator.

Wolves kept hacking and fouling, and Caicedo paid the price. They scored a carbon copy of their second late in the game, but the momentum shift was saved by the offside flag. And then Neto and Félix combined to score our sixth: a beautiful finish from the youngster on his second debut.

That was the signal for the home fans to go home. We could have scored more goals in their absence, but we would have wasted some promising counters.

I think we’ll just have to make do with six.

Carefree.

• Two changes from last weekend, with Madueke and Mudryk replacing Nkunku and Lavia; Lavia misses out completely with a “minor” hamstring injury
• Neto comes on for Mudryk at half time
• Madueke is a big liar; he clearly loves Wolverhampton
• 3 goals for Madueke; 3 assists for Palmer (the first to do so in a league match for us since Fàbregas in 2016)
• Goals for Jackson, Palmer and Felix too! Welcome back, João.
• Caicedo, confused all day, limps off at 75. Hopefully he’s okay. KDH-Enzo midfield for the last 15+.
• Nothing is worse than inconsistent refereeing.
• Next match: Thursday the return against Servette
• KTBFFH

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