Xabi Alonso admitted goalscoring was not high on his list of reasons for signing Jordan Henderson after the veteran’s two-goal display against Bournemouth.
Henderson, 36, rolled back the years with a pair of superb strikes and provided an assist for Morgan Rogers in a thumping 5-1 win.
The former Liverpool captain was brought in on a surprise free transfer from Brentford over the summer to bring some leadership to Chelsea’s callow ranks.
But on the day Cole Palmer announced he had signed a new eight-year contract, the player 12 years his senior stole the show.
“We signed him for everything,” said Blues boss Alonso. “If he’s able to score two beauties like today we are more than happy for him.
“But apart from the goals he’s done many good things. I think that today was a very complete performance.”
Chelsea are the Premier League’s fast starters and there were only 65 seconds on the clock when Palmer fed Henderson, who crashed a first-time shot in off a post.
Just over a minute later Henderson teed up Rogers, whose curler flicked the head of António Silva on its way into the net.
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João Pedro got in on the act just 40 seconds into the second half, and the Brazilian doubled his tally after Evanilson had pulled one back for Bournemouth before Henderson curled in a free-kick to wrap up the scoring.
Asked about Chelsea’s lightning start to games, Alonso said: “I have nothing to do with it, so I don’t have the answer.
“We always speak about how we try to start the game well and give good energy, but I have no explanation, no credit to me.
“It has never happened to me in such a short period to score that many early goals, so let’s see if we can keep doing that.
“But after the goals, many other things need to happen. Maybe, I’d prefer to score the first one in the last minute. It will happen one day, hopefully.”
Bournemouth had lost only once in their previous 13 trips to London, but they were pulverised in the October sunshine and are still winless after six matches under new head coach Marco Rose.
“We played not good, so a deserved loss, especially the way we started both halves,” said the German.
“We know Chelsea is a team that starts well and it is our responsibility that we didn’t act in the right way. It’s my responsibility, and we have to do better. We struggled for long periods in the game.
“We need to stick together, we knew it would be a demanding season.”
