Punishment for undeclared payments in the Abramovich era seems pathetically light and diminishes the Premier League
Y
ou might feel enough has already been said about the Chelsea huddle. You would be wrong, of course. It is impossible to say enough about the Chelsea huddle. A week on, that moment when the Chelsea players formed a scrum on the centre circle around what appeared at first glance to be a depressed hatstand, but turned out to be the immovable figure of referee Paul Tierney, is still the most moreishly haunting image of the season.
What did it mean? Even the basic geometry is fascinating, with its fractal-like symmetries. Here we have the Chelsea players making a circle inside a circle around a sphere on top of a smaller circle, above which a single bald head protrudes like an orbital moon.
The question of why has been part-explained as simple superstition. Chelsea did this before their game in Naples and won. In which case it’s a good thing they ended up losing to Newcastle last Saturday or it would have been necessary not just to carry on doing it but to force Paul Tierney to stand in the middle of the huddle looking noble and nonchalant and vaguely interested before every game until the end of the season.
