On the bright side, here we are, all the way through to the first international break of the season, and Frank Lampard’s Chelsea are still unbeaten at Stamford Bridge. For all that some media outlets chose to dwell on other issues, that, surely, was the resounding take-away from last weekend’s 2-2 draw against Sheffield United. The Bridge is undeniably an absolute fortress under the new boss.

OK, so, yes, it would be nice if it quite quickly became the kind of fortress in which we won a few games, rather than drawing them. Nice, too, if it was a fortress in which, having advanced confidently and efficiently, in a gale of energised football, to a one- or two-goal lead, we managed to hold on to that lead and take all three of the available points instead of just one of them. But, as we all know, these are early days in the project, and those other things are refinements. There will be plenty of time for that kind of peripheral detail in due course. In the meantime, we can focus on the core issue: unbeaten at the Bridge.

And this is a good time to be finding a ‘fortress mentality’ at home because we’re going to be there quite a lot this month: for a highly unusual four matches in succession, in fact, in the eleven days between 17th September and the 28th.

Having travelled to Wolves when football resumes on Saturday week, we have our opening Champions League match and our third round Carabao Cup tie, both at home, separated by the home Premier League game against Liverpool on 22 September, with Brighton at home a week later. Rather than going in and out all the time, you may find it more convenient to bring a sleeping bag and stay over for some of it.

First up, Valencia. Last Friday’s draw for groups in the Champions League worked out pretty well for us, I thought. There was the obligatory Group of Death, which we avoided (the one which ended up with Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan all piled up in it), the Group of Sleep (anyone setting their alarm for the games between Zenit, Benfica, Lyon and Leipzig?), the Group of Tottenham (ditto), and, that truly old and familiar one, the Group of Surely They Shouldn’t Be Making It Quite So Easy For Manchester City.

As for us, we found ourselves drawn in the Group of Attractive Matches In Extremely Pleasant, Relatively Easy-to-Reach Locations That Won’t Require Our Players To Spend Most of Thursday Morning Cooped Up In An Aeroplane. Indeed, I would argue that Group H meets all three of the fundamental requirements for an enjoyable Champions League group in an ideal world. It should look like the kind of group you might have a good chance of emerging from. It should involve teams whom you will be excited to meet and with whom you aren’t over-familiar as a consequence of being in the Champions League quite a lot in recent years. And it shouldn’t involve the kind of travelling which means your players’ legs and brains are still effectively two time-zones away when the following weekend’s Premier League fixture comes around.

Contrast the fate awaiting some of our friends in the Europa League. For Manchester United fans, whose team seem to have drawn Astana, there is a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel the best part of 6000 miles, round-trip, and explore the sights and sounds of Kazakhstan. Or maybe not once-in-a-lifetime if United manage to get themselves into a Europa League place again at the close of 2019/20, which is not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility. I mean, right now you’ll probably laugh at me for suggesting it. But far more surprising things have happened in football.

Meanwhile, tickets just went on sale for that third round Carabao Cup tie against either Grimsby or Macclesfield – and I’ve got to say, I had to look twice at the prices to make sure I was reading them correctly. £10 for adults and £5 concession! At the risk of making this column seem like some kind of in-house propaganda outlet, that’s the steal of the century, isn’t it? Ten pounds to see Frank Lampard’s Chelsea embark once again on a journey through English football’s second oldest knock-out competition, a tournament which we came within a penalty shoot-out (and the thickness of Kepa’s glove) of winning last year? We’re talking a monumental bargain, surely.

What does £10 buy you these days? Barely two cups of coffee and a chocolate muffin at Costa. And, as for entertainment, well, you’d be needing to spend at least four times that, I’d speculate, to come anywhere near a seat for ‘The Lion King’ in the West End. And, trust me, because I’ve seen it: there’s no silverware on offer at ‘the end of ‘The Lion King,’ let alone qualification for Europe in the 2020/21 season.

Also: better songs at Chelsea v. Grimsby/Macclesfield. I can guarantee it.