THE trophy awaits, but Chelsea are showing that, with kids, what you can win is lots of football matches and admirers.
This wasn’t their best performance of the season and it always felt like those in attack would have to do their job better than those in defence, but there was also an inevitability to the outcome.
Seldom have we said that about them in recent campaigns. Whatever number Newcastle scored, Cole Palmer would likely do something to make sure his side scored one more.
And Palmer, again, was the game’s outstanding player. He scored the winner and as good as assisted Nicholas Jackson’s opener, so outrageous was his pass at the onset of that attack. Newcastle don’t have a Palmer. In fact, who does?
The Toon Army have long wondered why they their club cannot do what Chelsea does. That frustration was confined to spending off the pitch. Right now, they are wondering why their team are struggling to compete on it.
Nicolas Jackson opened the scoring for Chelsea as he tapped in from close range
Alexander Isak equalised for Newcastle as he tapped in at the far post late in the first-half
Cole Palmer's strike beat Nick Pope at his near-post at the start of the second-half to give Chelsea all three points
This result puts five points and eight places between them in the table and, this season at least, you would expect those margins to get even greater. Chelsea are simply a better team with better players.
The bulk of Enzo Maresca’s bench would get into Eddie Howe’s starting XI, and to that end there is sympathy for the Newcastle boss. But even allowing for that disparity in quality, there is something amiss at Newcastle this season and, to keep it alive, they need to beat Chelsea in the Carabao Cup back at St James’ Park on Wednesday.
Maresca will make changes for that game but Howe cannot, not if he wants to win. Scorer Alexander Isak will be asked to go again, even though parts of his game here would warrant being dropped, never mind rested.
He gave the ball away for Palmer’s goal and then, with team-mates free in the penalty area and the goal gaping, the Swede elected to continue a dribble and duly lost the ball. That would have made it 2-2 with 15 minutes to play. Chelsea, you suspect, would have rallied to win.
Not that they should have needed to do so after an opening half hour in which they tormented Newcastle to the point of the visitors arguing amongst themselves.
The Magpies started with five in midfield and yet, during those 30 minutes, did not have a midfield. Palmer played between the lines, be that Newcastle’s defence and midfield or their midfield and attack. No matter where he went, no one followed. Even when he broke the lines, as he did when seeing a fifth-minute finish ruled out by a VAR offside, it was as if he was playing with an exclusion zone around him.
Palmer does not needs space - as he showed when nutmegging and spinning away from Fabian Schar in a rare moment of visiting pressure - but give him it and he will punish you. It’s like gifting a toddler a whistler and expecting a quiet afternoon.
Still, the pass that led to Chelsea’s opening goal was about more than space. Palmer collected the ball 10 yards outside his own penalty area and duly whipped it another 50 upfield, in behind full-back Tino Livramento and springing Pedro Neto clear. It was a pass that deserved a goal and, when Neto rolled into the path of Jackson, it was a simple finish. It owed everything, however, to the complexity of Palmer’s contribution.
Newcastle levelled after a fine move of their own - albeit against the run of play - when Livrmento bustled through the middle of the park and found Harvey Barnes who fed the overlapping Lewis Hall. He put it on a plate for Isak to turn in from three yards.
The scores were level for just quarter of an hour and, within 90 seconds of the restart after half-time, Isak lost the ball on halfway and Palmer was allowed to advance before drilling into the bottom corner. Goalkeeper Nick Pope won’t want to see a replay.
There were a few nervy moments towards the end for the Premier League’s youngest team - average age 23 this season - but they saw out the win like men, no one more so than Reece James.
But the star was Palmer, it always is.