Chelsea vs. Manchester United offer masterclass of nonsense in laughable battle of fallen giants

The game was filled with comical chaos and seven goals

LONDON -- They're supposed to save the madness for the final whistle at Stamford Bridge. Instead, Chelsea and Manchester United delivered surely the Citizen Kane of bad football. The best worst game the Premier League has ever seen, a masterclass in nonsense thrown away by the hosts in the first 100 minutes, won in the last two.

Cole Palmer, the ice man who seemed to have been caught up in the hot-headedness of this ludicrous game, somehow ended up with the match ball he had spent so much of the preceding half an hour forlornly booting into United defenders. In two minutes, Erik ten Hag's hopes of the Champions League qualification that might keep his job went up in smoke, Diogo Dalot crashing into Noni Madueke to hand Palmer a penalty before the entire United rearguard switched off for a corner drilled in by the coldest man on the Fulham Road.

It seems appropriate that this result should send Chelsea careening up the table from 11th to 10th, the sheer stupidity of the occasion only heightened as these fallen giants battle for scraps. You knew beforehand this was going to be daft, that is the stock trade of both the Blues and United this season. Still, nothing could quite have prepared you for this.