Conor Gallagher beats Manchester City; Liverpool also drop points

We’re now a quarter way through the 2021-22 Premier League season — 10 down, 28 to go — and we find our beloved Blues at the very top of the table.

That in and of itself doesn’t mean too much.

Around this time last season, halfway through Matchday 11 in fact, Chelsea were top for a night as well. Fifty days later, Frank Lampard was sacked. Things can change very quickly in football.

But the feeling, as impossible as that may be to quantify, is different this year. In fact, it’s starting to feel like something special may indeed be building — not that last season’s Champions League victory wasn’t special enough already, but if that set the tone, we’re now starting to truly carry the tune. A Tuchel-tune, if you will.

Beyond all that frothiness, Chelsea do have a three-point lead at the top of the Premier League table, with the fewest goals conceded — half as many as the next best team, in fact — and the best goal difference in the division, having scored two fewer than Liverpool (so we’re only second in that regard).

We’ve won four in a row, and while we were expected to win all four, things are hardly ever that straightforward. Case in point: our two closest rivals both dropping points this weekend at home.

Liverpool took a two-goal lead against Brighton & Hove Albion inside of 25 minutes, but had to settle for a draw. Manchester City didn’t even get that far, giving up a goal in the first few minutes and the last few minutes to visiting Crystal Palace, while scoring none in return and having Aymeric Laporte sent off halfway through. Chelsea loanee Conor Gallagher was instrumental as one would expect, assisting the first and scoring the second in a head-turning performance that surely has someone already printing up his name and number for next year’s Chelsea shirts (if they weren’t doing so already).

Elsewhere, Spurs laid a massive turd at home against equally turdalicious Manchester United, losing 3-0 at New Three Point Lane to a chorus of jeers and boos, while Arsenal continued their resurgence with another win to propel them back into the top-six. They are now unbeaten in seven straight league games, since the 5-0 beatdown by Manchester City in late August.

May that serve as another reminder that things can change very quickly, and we must not let up — especially with another game against a bottom team coming next weekend with Burnley at home.