CHELSEA’S steel-haired matchday announcer Lee Parker urges fans to share Stamford Bridge selfies, with ‘Happy Birthday, Dad’ and ‘My son’s first match’ snaps appearing on the big screen at halftime.

Lucky the young fan who can list Chelsea v Liverpool as their earliest spectator game.

The first half of a pulsating end-to-end thriller ranks as one of the greatest 45 minutes in the Premier League.

From the moment Sadio Mane was booked after 15 seconds for elbowing Blues captain Cesar Azpilicueta (a straight red at any other time) to the final toot of Anthony Taylor's whistle, you couldn’t take your eyes off it.

Yet the only victor in the 2-2 draw was Man City, who now seem certain to take the title.

Liverpool, without the Covid-isolating Jurgen Klopp on the touchline, went two-up through Mane and, inevitably, ex-Blue Mo Salah… but Chelsea shoved their way back into the match with two late first-half strikes; a pair of volleys from Christian Pulisic and Mateo Kovacic.

Kovacic’s goal, from the edge of the area, joins Mario Stanic’s 2000 strike, Gianfranco Zola’s glorious airborne backheel of 2002 and (my personal favourite) Bjarne Goldbaek’s 1999 howitzer against Spurs among the finest Blue goals of all time… each a little YouTube treat.

The fact that Thomas Tuchel dropped Romelu Lukaku from the squad, following ill-advised TV comments suggesting he’d prefer to be playing in Italy, ceased to matter as the surviving fragments of the Bavarian’s squad generated a feast of football. Whoever thought club press officers were so crucial to reining in footballers’ self-importance?

Next up this weekend, Chelsea host Chesterfield in a David v Goliath clash at the Bridge in the FA Cup.