Palmer one of three BlueCo pillars to tumble as Chelsea reduced to rubble

“I truly believe we can play a competitive game and fight for the points,” said Vitor Pereira in defence of eight changes to his starting XI for a game sandwiched between the two legs of Nottingham Forest’s Europa League semi-final against Aston Villa.

It was a risk – defeat to Chelsea would have left them just three points above West Ham in the relegation battle with three games left to play; one calculated with Europa League glory and ensuing Champions League qualification in mind. It paid off handsomely.

“We change the players but we keep the spirit: to fight, to have organisation, and to have the confidence to play and compete for the three points,” Pereira added. “I know (how important the game is in the relegation battle) but the (players) need to prove to that in this moment they are ready to help the team.”

The second-string Forest players showed that spirit and fight in spades while their Chelsea counterparts did more than their fair share to level what should have been a ploughed pasture of a playing field on the basis of individual talent through reverting to wretched type following the FA Cup semi-final anomaly.

It was as though they had nothing to play for despite sixth place – sure to bring Europa League football and possibly Champions League qualification – remaining very much up for grabs in what looked like a four-team scrap with Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton.

The grit and desire that saw them triumph over Leeds a week ago was replaced by the apathy and negligence that brought about Liam Rosenior’s downfall.

Marc Cucurella – one of the chief Rosenior mutineers – should perhaps have been reminded before kick-off that he, Enzo Fernández and the other rebels had already ousted ‘the supply teacher’ and could pick up the tools they had downed to ensure his exit.

Arguably the best one-on-one defender in the Premier League was diddled twice in the first 11 minutes by Dilane Bakwa, making just his fifth Premier League start of the season, to ensure Chelsea had a two-goal mountain to climb that they barely looked at before deciding it was insurmountable.

Taiwo Awoniyi climbed under no challenge to nod in Bakwa’s first cross and was denied a chance to do the same from his second thanks to a pathetic and lazy shirt pull from Malo Gusto to concede a penalty that was converted by Igor Jesus.

The ‘what’s happened to him?’ question could be asked of any of these Chelsea player but one in a scarcely believable six-game run which has seen them concede three on four occasions and would have been the sixth without scoring had it not been for an outstanding overhead kick in stoppage time from Joao Pedro, the only Blues player to have maintained any sort of standard.

Cole Palmer was handed a golden opportunity just before half-time to get them back in the game from the penalty spot after a horrible clash of heads saw 18-year-old Jesse Derry stretchered off on his full debut for the Blues.

Thierry Henry said in the Sky Sports studio that he “knew” Matz Sels would save it after a ten-minute delay and having worked with the big Belgian on international duty in that way which displays him as an all-seeing genius as it happened but wouldn’t have been mentioned if it hadn’t.

It was a brilliant save from what was a perfectly decent penalty from Palmer – passed at pace near the bottom corner if not quite in it – but it was another moment to feed perfectly viable suggestions that the Chelsea playmaker doesn’t merit a place in the England squad for this summer’s World Cup.

He’s suffering from a crisis of confidence we had all assumed he was immune to after he swanned into Stamford Bridge and immediately asserted himself as one of the most exciting and prolific young talents in world football.

And with Thomas Tuchel watching on, Palmer’s form and mental state stood in stark contrast to that of Morgan Gibbs-White, who emerged from the bench at half-time brimming with self-assurance on the back of seven goals in as many games to assist Awoniyi, secure three points and surely Premier League football for next season.

The pass between goalkeeper and defender was pinpoint and timed to perfection as the big striker just marginally stayed onside, but as notable was the way in which he ran off the back of another of Chelsea’s star downturners, Moises Caicedo.

The Caicedo or Declan Rice debate that was raging before the turn of the year is now laughable. While Rice drags Arsenal through games to keep them in the running for major honours, Caicedo has reverted to the inert football which typified his early Stamford Bridge career and had detractors questioning exactly what Chelsea had paid a nine-figure sum for.

A guy who was sensing and snuffing out danger to the highest of levels before the turn of the year is now reacting to that danger and looks as though he has neither the energy not the passion to put out the fires.

Not that any right-minded soul would have laid any significant blame for this stratospheric mess at the door of a man overpromoted to such an astonishing degree, Rosenior’s departure has cleared the way for Chelsea fans’ censure to be aimed at the appropriate targets

It’s focused minds on the true villains of this disasterclass, the BlueCo crisis purveyors who have turned a trophy-winning machine into failed football experiment.

They’ve spent £1.5bn on players and ended up with a team that’s lost six Premier League games on the spin for the first time since 1993. And no-one can say that buying expensive young talent at the cost of experience is a project that won’t ever work, they’ve set parameters which mean that everything has to be perfect for it to become a success.

They have to buy the right young players; they have to hire the perfect coach. They’ve so far signed a whole lot of dross and a handful of brilliant stars, who now can’t be arsed because the closest-to-perfect manager they’ve worked under was sacked for speaking his mind and replaced with someone who would have been fortunate to land any Premier League job having worked at Hull City and Strasbourg, let alone one that won the Champions League less than a year before BlueCo’s miserable reign started.

Cucurella, Palmer and Caicedo are three of the pillars on which the rickety BlueCo project has been built and as they tumble the deplorable owners stand on the rubble of Chelsea Football Club.