Squad Numberology: Victor Moses wears #18; Chelsea confirm all other shirt numbers

There were two main lessons to be learned from the pre-game squad introductions on Tuesday.  Both had been suspected, but now they are confirmed.

One, Neil Barnett is a terrible hype man.  He may love his hats and he may talk in a rather endearing way and he may represent Chelsea well when he hosts football shows on SiriusXM satellite radio, but he's sorely lacking as a hype man.  When "John Te-REEEEE" is the best you can do, your best is simply not good enough.  In the preview I wrote that I was hoping Chelsea would bring in somebody special for this special occasion.  They did not, though they did at least put some pyrotechnics onto the pitch.  So that was fun, even if the players were strangely subdued throughout it all.  Come on dudes, put some emotion into it.  Drogba at least tried!

If you missed all this, here's video courtesy of Chelsea's YouTube channel.  (Good heavens, a video longer than 30 seconds!)

Two, Chelsea essentially confirmed all the shirt numbers that we had speculated about throughout the Preseason of the Nameless Shirts.  The official website, as usual, is a bit behind still as of this writing (Courtois with no number, Aké with 27, etc.), but with the official introductions and by wearing shirts with names, not just numbers on them for the first time all preseason, we can finalize our list.  For now, anyway.  Until we buy / sell / loan somebody on transfer deadline day.

In ascending order then, here is the 25-man squad with the new boys in bold and changed numbers in italics:

#1 - Petr Čech
#2 - Branislav Ivanović
#3 - Filipe Luis
#4 - Cesc Fàbregas
#5 - Kurt Zouma
#6 - Nathan Aké (was #27)
#7 - Ramires
#8 - 
#9 - Fernando Torres
#10 - Eden Hazard (was #17)
#11 - Oscar
#12 - Mikel
#13 - Thibaut Courtois
#14 - André Schürrle
#15 - Didier Drogba
#16 - Marco van Ginkel
#17 - Mohamed Salah (was #15)
#18 - Victor Moses (was #13)
#19 - Diego Costa
#20 - 
#21 - Nemanja Matić
#22 - Willian
#23 - Mark Schwarzer
#24 - Gary Cahill
#25 - 
#26 - John Terry
#27 - 
#28 - César Azpilicueta
#29 - 
#30 - 
#31 - Andreas Christensen (was #32)

Of the numbers left unassigned, Lampard's 8 and Zola's 25 are probably waiting for "worthy" successors.  In the latter's case, the wait may go on for quite some time, possibly forever.  Oriol Romeu had #20 earlier in the preseason, but he's now been loaned out.  Fourth goalkeeper Jamal Blackman will probably continue with #46, should the need for him ever arise.