Chelsea's stellar attack masks goalkeeper crisis under Alonso

In the opening act of Chelsea's new era under Xabi Alonso, the beautiful and the broken appeared side by side at Stamford Bridge. A triumphant attacking trio announced themselves to the Premier League with goals and invention, yet the same match revealed a fragility in goal that ancient wisdom would recognise: no fortress stands on a crumbling foundation. The 3-2 victory over Fulham was real, but so was the warning it carried — that ambition and vulnerability can inhabit the same moment, and that the distance between a title and a near-miss is sometimes measured in a goalkeeper's hands.