New away records, old England captains and a genie were on the agenda at West Brom.

Wrestling a top-flight unbeaten home record off Liverpool a year ago was sweet, but there are plenty of Chelsea fans who would find it equally appetising to take outright Tottenham's all-time top flight run of wins away from home.

The last thing After The Whistle wishes to do is tempt fate but if only to avoid confusion, the different records either equalled or beaten at The Hawthorns on Saturday are worth making clear.

Beaten was the Premier League's previous best (i.e. the best since 1992) which was our own 2004/5 run of nine straight wins on the road.

The now jointly-owned with Tottenham record of 10 wins is across the full history of league football with no semi-artificial cut-off point as you count back.

Tottenham's run, like ours, was spread across two seasons, and in fact began at Stamford Bridge with a 3-1 win, back in the days when our local rivals could win here - April 1960 to be precise.

Tottenham's run was goal-laden at both ends with 34 scored while they conceded 13. Chelsea have let in only one goal in the 900 minutes while scoring 24.

Spurs went onto the win the league and cup double the season they set the record, their top scorer that season, Bobby Smith, had originally been a Chelsea player.

The chance to pull clear with 11 straight wins comes next month at Bolton - and you don't have to remember back to 1960 to know Chelsea like a celebration at the Reebok.

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Once the Blues (or Yellows to be more accurate) had got to grips with West Brom's attacking shape that caused a few problems early on, and José Bosingwa's second Chelsea goal had racked up the pressure on the division's lowest scorers, the result never on Saturday evening never felt in doubt.

One observer at The Hawthorns was former England captain and current Scotland assistant manager Terry Butcher who told After The Whistle what he believes makes Chelsea so good away from the Bridge. He also discussed his successor to the national team skipper's armband.

'Chelsea don't always rely on the counter attack,' Butcher told us, 'but the central midfield three pass the ball very well and playing teams away, there is always space behind a home defence, because they are pushed on, for Anelka, Malouda and Kalou to get in.

'It is a good, balanced system away from home as has been proved obviously.

'Defensively it starts from the front. You see the two wider players get back and help the full backs so very quickly it becomes a 4-5-1 and as all teams do internationally, they generally leave one attacker up.

'The other players then get behind the ball which makes it hard to get at the back four and makes their job easier.

'Chelsea work extremely hard and wherever the ball is, they hunt it down in packs and make it very difficult. If I was playing against Chelsea, the one thing I would do is suck them over to one side and then quickly transfer the ball to the other side - but Chelsea have good pace throughout the team and they seem to sense danger.'

Butcher also revealed admiration for John Mikel Obi whom he believes is major reason for the incredible statistic of only one goal against in the 10 away games.

'Mikel is immense and was breaking a lot of things up in this game. He gets his body in the way of the ball and is a very strong player. He is compared to Makelele and he is bigger, stronger, and he is improving all the time, very rarely giving the ball away.

'He just sits in front of the back four and if crosses are coming into the box, he goes into the back four and heads them away as well.'

In his early playing days, John Terry spoke about the impact Butcher's courage in famously playing on blooded had on the schoolboy future England defender.

Never one to be afraid of putting his head in where it hurts, it could be argued JT had his Butcher moment in the Carling Cup Final against Arsenal. Nowadays it's Butcher talking about Terry.

'Perhaps he is a throwback to our era which is not a bad thing. If you are totally committed, you are totally committed. You can't change your style or you would be half the player.

'John got booked today for a foul I would have committed as well and it just shows you, 3-0 up and he still makes a challenge like that.'

Butcher told us he never had the chance to play Germany (or West Germany as it was then) on their home soil. His games against the Germans were at Wembley, in World Cups or once in Mexico in a friendly when our own Kerry Dixon scored twice.

He will not be at all surprised to see JT overcome an injury scare and be declared fit to travel to Berlin this week.

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Felipe Scolari's time in the Middle East managing sides in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait clearly left its mark.

During a typically entertaining press conference in West Brom's impressive new media facilities, he first picked up an exotic shaped blue water bottle and asked the amused press if Aladdin was about to be released as he uncorked it.

Then to one journalist's perhaps slightly cynical suggestion that Terry had been substituted with a 'meaningless international friendly injury', Felipe declared:

'Inshallah. Inshallah, no.'

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If the same world-weary journo suspects that Frank Lampard's rib problem, which has forced his withdrawal from the England camp, is a meaningless international friendly injury, Chelsea's club photographer Darren Walsh has evidence otherwise as can be seen in the pictures below.

West Brom's Jonas Olsson needed treatment as well.

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Champions League Watch now and our next opponents, Bordeaux, suffered an end to a good recent run of results with defeat at the weekend, although it was away to long-time France top dogs Lyon.

Fernando Cavenaghi was on-target for the second weekend running for Bordeaux although it proved to be an 80^th minute consolation in 2-1 defeat, his side now sixth and nine points behind Lyon.

Their experienced second-choice keeper Matthieu Valverde, knocked unconscious a week ago, did play so is likely to be between the posts against us in France next week.

Rome's defeat of Chelsea is now looking like the start of a return to form. Our Group A rivals beat Lazio in the big derby on Sunday evening thanks to a Julio Baptista header. They remain 17^th.

CFR Cluj won 2-0 against Pitesti, Yssouf Kone grabbing both goals. Cluj are third, Dan Petrescu's Unirea Urziceni still leading the way in Romania.

afterthewhistle@chelseafc.com