Monday 22 July
Ethan Ampadu will play with RB Leipzig next season. He had the medical on Friday so it isn’t much of a surprise.
Frank Lampard confirmed that he had tried to sign Ethan at Derby last season and added: “I really wanted to work with Ethan this year. That’s a slight disappointment, but it’s to benefit of him. In midfield and defence we have a lot of quality, so each player is a case by case.”
Leipzig are not everyone’s favourite team – imagine MK Dons financially doped into the Champions League and you’ll be about there – but it will give us an excuse to watch Bundesliga matches again this season.
Tuesday 23 July
Chelsea 2:1 Barcelona
Tammy Abraham was very pleased with his goal as he danced a two-step round the Barca keeper following Jorginho’s quick closing.
Ross Barkley scored the second with a curled left-foot effort from the edge of the box. Frank will be having words about the late strike they pulled back… and we’ll play down the fact that this was their first run or pre-season.
A good workout in the heat and humidity again for what is shaping into the first-team squad.
Wednesday 24 July
Newport County AFC 1:6 Chelsea U23
A confident a fluid display from our development squad. Goals from Gallagher, Maatsen, Castillo, Ugbo (with two) and Broja against a weakened Newport side.
Rumours that Callum Hudson Odoi put pen to paper on a new five-year deal are floating around but no confirmation on the official site. The move would end a year of links with a move to the Bundesliga and Munich. It seems that combination of his injury and Frank Lampard’s positive influence on the squad has changed his mind… north of £100,000 a week as an 18-year-old will help too.
Lewis Baker has joined Fortuna Düsseldorf on loan. Lewis is the best midfielder we have produced but a series of poor loans and injuries have held him back. Fortuna have to option to buy for €10m and we wish him Viel Glück.
Thursday 25 July
Eric Ramsey has joined the development squad as assistant coach. Eric made his mark coaching at Shrewsbury Town with their academy and first team.
Kyle Scott is in Newcastle having a look round ahead of a possible move.
Friday 26 July
The U23s were supposed to be playing Bayern München tomorrow but their flight was cancelled so it looks like it might be off.
Frank Lampard has been Chelsea boss for three weeks now but today was his first training session back at Cobham. It was a first for Christian Pulisic as well and N’Golo Kanté joined in part of the session.
The women have been drawn Group D of the Continental Tyres Cup with West Ham, Reading, Lewes, Tottenham and Crystal Palace. The women’s league cup is the only domestic trophy we have yet to win.
Saturday 27 July
Sutton United 2:2 Chelsea U18
Callum Hudson-Odoi was down from this one and saw second-half goals from Charlie Brown and Tariq Lamptey. The last a 25-yard deflected equaliser. We weren’t at our best.
Todd Kane joined QPR today. Todd has been with us since he was in short trousers and was developing nicely at Hull last term as an attacking full-back.
Sunday 28 July
Reading 3:4 Chelsea
A really entertaining game and one that will give the new coaching staff nightmares if the defensive mistakes are carried through to the start of the campaign.
Mason Mount further stamped his authority on our pre-season with two more goals, one excellent the other a gift, after Ross Barkley and Kenedy had given us a 2-1 half-time lead.
Reading stood their ground and could have earned a draw from an end to end encounter. Tammy Abraham had an acrobatic effort just wide and we rattled the woodwork in a match that could have had eight or nine goals, each.
Frank looked like he was enjoying himself despite the slips and he said we would be focusing on the Manchester United in the final two warm-up games – RB Salzburg on 7pm on Wednesday and Borussia Mönchengladbach on Saturday at tea-time.
He also asked fans directly to stop singing the 200 goals song because we shouldn’t, in this day and age, be calling West Ham Pikeys and he is right.
“The support of the fans is incredible … If there’s a song that has offensive words in it then of course I don’t want to hear that and that’s me saying that as a big Chelsea man who really appreciates the support I’ve had over the years.
“We don’t want songs with offensive words so if the fans can sing other songs while still backing the team, which is more important than myself, then I’ll certainly back that. We’re all aware the club are very strong with the work we do off the pitch in terms of anything that’s offensive or prejudice. We’ve made a big mark in recent years so we don’t want that.”
Monday 29 July
The abuse of Raheem Sterling last December has resulted in a life-time ban for one fan and a temporary suspension for five others for using abusive language.
While we do not condone racist abuse or racism of any kind the Crown Prosecution Service refused to bring a charge on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
The issue was whether the fan said “Manc cunt” or “black cunt”.
While the club say they have been even-handed and employed two lip-readers the truth is if there was clear proof of racial abuse the CPS would have acted.
It seems harsh beyond measure to ban someone for life on the grounds of probability.
The message though is abundantly clear: keep the racist language out of Stamford Bridge or they will keep you out.
We missed that Matt Miazga re-joined Reading on loan on Thursday last week. The American spent the end of last term with the Royals. Jake Clarke-Salter joined Birmingham City on loan. Jake is captain of the England U21 but he will find Birmingham a challenge with erratic owners and regular changes of management.
The U18s start their new season with a trip to last season’s champions Arsenal on Saturday 10 August.
Tuesday 30 July
Very quiet around here with no transfer business.
Wednesday 31 July
RB Salzburg 3:5 Chelsea
What can you say about Pedro’s goal? He backheeled a volley from a Ross Barkley pass for goal that Gianfranco Zola would have been proud of and clearly our goal of the season already.
It stole Christian Pulisic’s thunder as the Yank scored two and won the penalty that had us 1-3 up at the break.
Michy Batshuayi worked really hard in scoring his goal.
The only concern is in conceding three for a second match in a row. It is only a friendly, personnel changes lead to concentration lapses but it is an area of concern.
Frank looked to put it in perspective, “conceding in pre-season is something you don’t want to do but it is not the worst as it gives you things to address before the business starts.”
Jamie Cumming signed a four-year deal and will understudy as third choice ’keeper this season.
Thursday 1 August
Uefa decided to take no action against Barcelona after their stewards attacked Chelsea fans back in March 2018.
Uefa had been handed a huge dossier of evidence by the club who collected as many witness statements as they could. Uefa
Kasey Palmer will join Jay Dasilva and Tomas Kalas at Bristol City on a permanent deal. Ashton Gate is becoming a bit an old boys club for us now and we wish them well having just missed out on the play-offs last season they have recruited well.
And nobody says titty anymore so it is barely even rhyming slang.
Dujon Sterling has joined Wigan Athletic for the season. We thought Dujon would be one of those breaking through this season at right-back, instead he will follow in the footsteps of Reece James who had such a productive loan up at the DW.
Friday 2 August
Glasgow Rangers U23 1:1 Chelsea U23
A creditable pre-season draw as Tariq Uwakwe equalised for us with a far-post header. The match celebrated the opening of a new stand at the Ranger’s training complex but was otherwise low key.
One Maka, two Maka, three Makelele… Claude Makelele is back as technical mentor to our young players and to loan players. If he could teach them all to take the ball on the half-turn like he did it will be worth the money.
Carlo Cudicini has been given the job of loan player liaison that Eddy Newton has been doing in recent years. Carlo has been helping our two most recent Italian managers over the last few years after coming back to the club as an ambassador in 2014
Conor Gallagher signed a new deal and headed out on loan to Charlton Athletic. Lee Bowyer and the Addicks should get the best out of our promising midfielder in what is an optimistic season down at the Valley.
Willian has been handed the number 10 shirt with Christian Pulisic 22.
The bastard in the black for our Super Cup match with Liverpool a week on Wednesday will be Stephanie Frappart. Stephanie will be the first women to referee a major men’s match in Europe. Whether we are expected to use gender appropriate swearing has yet to be confirmed.
Saturday 3 August
Borussia Monchengladbach 2:2 Chelsea
This was a bit of a mess in more ways than one.
Because the Football League season started today a live feed was ruled out. Sadly, Chelsea TV managed to broadcast a short highlights package before the as-live replay.
The highlights showed Monchengladbach strolling through our defence at will in the first-half for an easy 2-0 lead. The second period appeared to be ours but plenty of chances went begging before two penalty decisions handed us parity.
The coverage and the performance had an anti-climatic feel but the second-half performance was sparkling in places.
In the real world the EFL (isn’t that the name of a tower in Paris) started with good performances from some of our loan army. Conor Gallagher had a few good late touches and provided some of the momentum for Charlton as they grabbed a winner away at Blackburn.
Luke McCormick played the first hour of the match as Shrewsbury beat promotion favourites Portsmouth at the New Meadow.
Everton U18 1:6 Chelsea U18
New scholars Myles Peart-Harris, Tino Livramento, Joe Haigh and Dion Rankine all got on the scoresheet with older heads Ballo and Lawrence adding the others.
Sunday 4 August
The traditional bad-tempered curtain raiser ended in penalties at Wembley as Manchester City – who pretend the Community Shield is a trophy – overcame Liverpool.
As usual, the victors celebrated like they’d won the World Cup, while the losers maintained that it was a good fitness exercise.
We can only hope that Liverpool are still in fitness exercise mode next Wednesday in a match that will be either a major European trophy or part of the pre-season routine depending on the outcome.
