Today's kick off at the Riverside is 12.45pm. Some things will be written here from about 12.30pm onwards.
Some team news:
Middlesbrough: Turnbull, Grounds, Wheater, Riggott, Taylor, Aliadiere, Shawky, O'Neil, Adam Johnson, Downing, Mido. Subs:
Jones, Digard, Emnes, Alves, Bennett, John Johnson, Walker.
Chelsea: Cudicini, Bosingwa, Terry, Alex, Bridge, Belletti, Lampard, Mikel, Kalou, Anelka, Malouda. Subs: Hilario, Ivanovic, Sinclair, Ferreira, Deco, Mancienne, Stoch.
Referee: Phil Dowd (Staffordshire)
Good lunchtime all and welcome to the Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough, where chart-toppers Chelsea are this afternoon's visitors. They're "injury ravaged" today, with Carlo Cudicini in goal, Deco only on the bench, Joe and Kazakhstan's Ashley Cole out, joining Ricardo Carvahlo, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba rattling around the stands. Or at home. But England's Brave John Terry returns after a bout of back-knack kept him from being brave against Belarus and Kazakhstan for his country, and Alex has recovered from buttock gah to partner EBJT at centre back.
To put this into perspective a little, Justin Hoyte is missing for Middlesbrough, meaning Jonathan Grounds plays, and Adam Johnson starts ahead of Afonso Alves. Mido leads the line in a team that features six of their academy graduates.
Pre-match research: The Guardian's match-pointers say that Middlesbrough have yet to concede a goal in the first half of a match this season, that they are two goals short of 6,000 in league football, and that a win for Boro would take them to 100 under Gareth Southgate. Prediction department: One of these records will be broken this afternoon.
Department of irrelevancy: "Chelsea's striker Didier Drogba is more prolific against Boro (six goals in seven appearances) than he is against any other side." Department of more pertinency: Didier Drogba's knee injury is expected to keep him out of action until Novemer 9.
Jeff Stelling started his Super Saturday introduction with a cough and a smile and something like: "Here's the countdown to today's football." But he's not going to be cuddling up to Susie Dent anytime soon, since Alexander Armstrong is going to be feeling the housewives' love on the popular daytime Channel 4 gameshow.
Gary Naylor is back from the international break with renewed enthusiasm: "Older readers will have read your team news and done an Oliver Hardyesque double-take on seeing 'Sinclair' amongst the Chelsea subs, thinking 'Frank'? Alas, it's not the own goal specialist of the 90s - no room for such eccentricities in the ruthless Stamford Bridge machine any more. In a way, football is diminished as a result." True, true, but as Gary no doubt knows this is Scott Sinclair, the speedy forward, who some old-school fans are hailing as a potential saviour of the English club Chelsea FC.
1 min: And away we go, with Chelsea finding Salomon Kalou on the right, who tees up Bosingwa to hoist the first cross into the box. It goes behind Andy Turnbull's goal, and Boro touch the ball.
3 mins: Belletti is the subject of the early commentary-box witterings, about whether or not he's playing the holding role or pushing forward. The latter seems to be the consensus. For Boro, Aliadiere is playing up front with Mido.
4 mins: Adam Johnson doesn't so much skin Wayne Bridge down the right as ambles past the England left-back, who totters over. Johnson lays his cross into a dangerous area on the edge of the box, where none of his colleagues have gone.
6 mins: Boro allow Chelsea plenty of the ball in midfield and are defending deep. Chelsea over-egg it and the Boro backline copes. Nicolas Anelka then has a scurry in the inside right, but Wheater shepherds to safety.
8 mins: Malouda is left alone to weave into shooting distance, but doesn't see the run of either Belletti or Kalou and instead runs into Chris Riggott.
10 mins: Bosingwa, striding across the half-way line, is double-teamed by the Boro defenders, with a foul and a talking to going to Andrew Taylor from Phil Dowd. Lampard lifts the free-kick into the box, but Mido muscles Alex out of it.
12 mins: First sniff of danger from Boro: Mido is fouled 30 yards out which is improbably described as "Downing range" by Andy Gray. Some hope. Sure enough, the free-kick is booted into the wall, skews up and into the grateful arms of Carlo Cudicini.
14 mins: GOAL! Middlesbrough 0-1 Chelsea
So that's Middlesbrough's first-half goal conceding record broken. Bridge is played in down the left, he puts a great cross over into the middle that Wheater can only head as far as Belletti. His shot is blocked straight into the path of Kalou, who side-foots past Turnbull for an easy opener. Terrific build-up play, scrappy finish, but 1-0.
18 mins: Far too much space here for Chelsea in the middle and - counterintuitively - down the flanks as well. Bridge scampers into acres on the left wing and is played in again. This time Malouda can't control the cross adequately and the danger evaporates.
20 mins: Lampard invites Bosingwa into the attack down the right and he spins around his marker before Taylor finally gets a foot in. Then Kalou pops up in another huge gap on the right corner of the Boro box and fires a low shot goalward. He doesn't connect with particular venom and Turnbull stops.
21 mins: Mido's dropping deep to find the ball and, in this instance, give it away immediately with a dreadful ball that attempts to find Downing on the left and gets nowhere near him whatsoever. Roger Federer breaks Andy Murray in Madrid.
23 mins: This is all a bit pathetic up front from Boro, and Mido in particular, who now fails to spot Downing in plenty of room down the left and opts to chip over the middle to no one.
24 mins: Comical miss from Frank Lampard, who misses a gaping goal from three yards out when he's picked out with a simple square ball from Kalou, who is once again free on the inside right. The defender lunges in and apparently gets a touch because it goes for a corner.
26 mins: Gary O'Neil is booked for playing football. There's not anything amiss with his tackle on Alex, but Dowd doesn't like it and flashes yellow. Belletti dinks a threatening ball over the static Boro backline, who are grateful to see a linesman's flag shown to the dawdling Chelsea forwards.
28 mins: Anelka is this time all alone on the right, but can't beat the first man with a cross and 'wins' a corner instead. That's wasted by Lampard. "Boro's keeper rejoices in the moniker 'Andy Turnbull'" overstates Gary Naylor. "That's rather too close to "Wendy Turnbull", erstwhile bastion of evening doubles at Wimbledon. There was a time when all female tennis players looked like Wendy Turnbull, which is to say, like Andy Turnbull and not like Andie McDowell. I think." I don't know what that's all about, but this game is not a thriller as yet.
31 mins: Downing's persistence wins a corner on the left but then undoes all his good work - and then some - when he kicks at thin air after the corner is dragged back to him on the edge of the box. At the other end, Malouda squanders his own good chance when he has hours to line up a shot on the left corner and drags it wide of the right post.
33 mins: Chelsea's reserves have had all the possession here and are merely stroking it around midfield as Boro continue to drop off. In their attempt to get forward, Boro are consistently aiming at the so-far ineffective Mido, who does very little indeed.
36 mins: Chelsea try to find Malouda buzzing in the centre, but Wheater clears. That only invites another wave of effortless ambling forward by Chelsea which ends with Anelka and Kalou conspiring to produce pretty patterns but no end product on the right.
38 mins: Corner for Chelsea, which Lampard lifts to the near post. It's headed clear, but only to Malouda on the edge of the box, who thunders one over the bar.
41 mins: This has all the urgency of a training game and Chelsea are only really beating themselves, this time Anelka darting too hastily down the right and deemed offside. But Boro aren't getting anywhere near their opponents here and are allowing ridiculous amounts of space for the visitors.
43 mins: More room down the left for Wayne Bridge, whose low cross is cut out ahead of Anelka. But the pressure stays on and Chelsea have a corner, which eventually screws to Malouda on the edge of the box. His shot is charged down.
45 mins: Gareth Southgate is going to need to give some articulate hairdrying at half time as Boro have been woefully leaden-footed this half. Their best chance actually comes right at the end of the half when a half-arsed back-pass almost catches out Cudicini, but he clears.
Half-time: Jamie Redknapp.
Half-time 'analysis': Boro: really slow and casual. Chelsea: slightly less slow and casual. In truth the visitors could be three or four to the good here if they'd thought they needed to be. But at the moment it's alarmingly pedestrian for the best league in the world™.
End of half time: I have high hopes for this second half, if only to rescue some kind of meaning from this afternoon's work. But Boro are really going to need to turn up the urgency lest this one become one very drab footnote to their season and my career. And here they come, sauntering back onto the pitch. Andy Murray has won the second set against Roger Federer, if that's your bag. Federer won the first.
47 mins: Tempo is not just an Italian car. In fact, I'm not sure it's even an Italian car, but the point is that "Tempo" was the buzzword at the break and Middlesbrough need to up it. Two minutes in, Downing gets a hearty round of applause for rasping one yards over the bar. That was already an improvement, which says much.
48 mins: Free kick for Boro on the left is plucked out the air by Cudicini. But in the blink of an eye Chelsea go right up the other end, Arsenal-like, and have a gilt-edged chance to double the lead. The 'keeper's throw is horribly misjudged by Grounds at right back, allowing Kalou a free run on goal. Turnbull comes out but the Chelsea forward beats both him and the left post. That should definitely be 2-0.
51 mins: And THAT is 2-0. Goal! Middlesbrough 0-2 Chelsea
The ball finds its way to Belletti in the middle of the pitch 30 yards from goal. The Brazilian looks up, sees nothing but the top right-hand corner of the net, and simply larrups it right there, past Ross Turnbull's despairing dive. Brilliant.
54 mins: Goal! Middlesbrough 0-3 Chelsea
And that's that. Long ball from Bridge finds Malouda deep into the Boro box. His knock-back richochets off Wheater and Kalou stabs it past Turnbull for 3-0.
57 mins: Jonathan Grounds is subbed, with John Johnson (or John Johnson, J, according to our match facts) replacing him. Boro have a sniff of goal when Aliadiere gets a shot in despite the attentions of three defenders, but Cudicini saves comfortably. "Belletti spoons over" I hear on my headphones, but missed this spooning.
60 mins: Boro are rubbish today, and now can't even play a three yard pass to each other in the comfort of their own half. Chelsea are the ones who have upped the pace and are now swarming forward. There might yet be five or so here.
61 mins: Lampard drives one in low, saved by Turnbull, after Wheater struggles to contain Anelka on the edge of the box and ends up teeing up the England midfielder. Andy Murray squanders three break points against Federer and that's now 2-2 in the final set.
64 mins: Goal! Middlesbrough 0-4 Chelsea
Boro need to be put out of their misery here as this is an embarrassment. The fourth goal is a beautiful flowing move from Chelsea, ended when Kalou stands one up in the box for an unmarked Lampard to head past Turnbull. The problem for Boro is that the move also contains passes from two of their players - a hopeless header from Taylor, then a misplaced 'tackle' from the otherwise anonymous Shawky. Anelka provides the other crucial touch to put in Kalou.
67 mins: Goal! Middlesbrough 0-5 Chelsea Yep, five. Anelka has acres on the left, he cuts in on his right foot and unleashes a low drive that Ross Turnbull scoops ridiculously through him and onto the post. It pings out to Malouda to tap into the open goal. There have been loads of substitutions too, but I haven't caught up.
69 mins: And that one is disallowed, although it doesn't excuse more completely hopeless 'defending' from the home side who give the ball away again, allow Malouda free down the left, and free on goal. Instead of just scoring himself, which he could have, he elects to play in Anelka. He duly slots it into the net but is offside and we stay at five.
71 mins: Side netting from Lampard. He takes a swipe from 20 yards after everyone backs off, again. I can't remember a more one-sided match than this in a long, long while.
73 mins: This substitution I did notice: Frank Lampard is replaced by Deco, who is given the perfect chance to prove his return to fitness against this pub side.
76 mins: Good save from Turnbull prevents a sixth, although he's going to be furious with his defenders for that. Yet again, they give Chelsea hours in midfield, Deco picks out a slide-rule pass to Anelka, scampering forward, and his shot across Turnbull is saved one-handed.
78 mins: A shot for Boro! Yes, it's closer to the corner flag than the goal from Mido, who wriggles free of the defenders' attentions and fires it in left footed. But let's not forget the facts: A shot for Boro! Scott Sinclair replaces Anelka.
80 mins: Afonso Alves, who is one of those subs I missed, is fouled by Bosingwa three yards out of the box, wide left. Alves takes it himself, thumps it into the wall, then Downing finishes the job and thumps it high and wide from the rebound. The sparse Boro crowd trickle home.
82 mins: Credit where it's due, even if it's 85 minutes too late and ultimately ineffective, but Boro have some sustained pressure. At the other end, Kalou goes in search of his hattrick, but sends an ambitious shot over the top.
84 mins: OK, time for a quick assessment of this: are Boro that bad, or are Chelsea that good? Well, the first half was mediocre from both, with the visitors barely needing to get out of second gear to go 1-0 up. The second half, though, made it look like the early tactics of dropping deep and slowing the pace were right all along: the minute Boro forced Chelsea to up the tempo, they were humiliated. There were a number of blunders from inexperienced players which didn't help at all, but Chelsea were effortlessly better than a pretty abject home team. I didn't answer my own question, did I.
88 mins: Chelsea killing time by revisiting the heady days of the first half, when they were casually stroking the ball among themselves with scarcely a threat from Boro. They win a corner, with which they toy around by the byeline, and this is dribbling to a close.
90+1 mins: The same, and then more of the same.
Full-time: Chelsea have another corner right at the death but sensibly, I suppose, engage in some keep-ball instead of hoisting it into the middle. Then the whistle puts Boro out of their misery - and you won't see a more emphatic victory than that all season.
Full-time+1 Chelsea consolidate their lead at the top of the Premier League, although Liverpool can overtake them provided they beat Wigan by 11 clear goals this afternoon. Make a point of seeing Belletti's goal on telly tonight. But that's it from here. Bye.
