Newcastle 4-1 Chelsea: Injury crisis, what injury crisis? Depleted Magpies run riot on Tyneside as Alexander Isak, Jamaal Lascelles, Joelinton and Anthony Gordon all score while Blues captain Reece James is SENT OFF in lively game at St James' Park

Mauricio Pochettino's self-imposed punishment for having to sit in the stands here will be to take his Chelsea squad out for dinner. He should make his players wash the dishes after this defeat, stained by errors and one in which they showed little appetite to compete with injury-depleted Newcastle.

Chelsea, by comparison, were depleted in attitude and application. 

Never mind the touchline, they could have done with their manager at the heart of the defence. Those at the back made Rishi Sunak look like a competent tradesman, after the Prime Minister's ham-fisted use of a hammer this week.

Pochettino must have felt like taking a hammer to the dressing-room wall afterwards. But even the plasterboard would have shown more resistance than his team, whose skipper Reece James stupidly got himself sent off and most experienced player, Thiago Silva, gifted Newcastle a game-clinching third goal.

At least, this time, Pochettino could have no quarrel with the officials. All the VAR checks confirmed was how bad Chelsea's defending had been. Two of Newcastle's goals looked offside on first viewing. Nope, just players unmarked in the goalmouth.

Five bookings and a red card, meanwhile, might suggest a bit of fight. Nope, just petulance. James's two bookings were for dissent and a schoolboy trip after losing the ball.

And this was against a Newcastle team in the middle of an injury crisis. For all Chelsea were hopeless, Eddie Howe's side were ruthless. 

England hopeful Anthony Gordon, man-of-the-match in a competitive home field, was up against recent Three Lions debutant Cole Palmer and Raheem Sterling, another perhaps ahead of him in the pecking order. Only one of that trio looked like an international forward here. Gordon assisted the second, scored the fourth and forced James's dismissal.

But there was another young Englishman who will enter the international conversation soon enough, even at 17 years old. 

Newcastle's Lewis Miley bossed £106million Enzo Fernandez during a pre-season friendly in the United States. Four months on and it was the same again. Remarkable, given this was Miley's first home start in the Premier League.

It would not have been had Joe Willock not suffered a recurrence of an Achilles injury on Friday, taking the list of absentees to 13. 

While Chelsea's bench boasted an embarrassment of riches - Moises Caicedo and Mykhailo Mudryk alone cost north of £200m - Newcastle's was worth just £16m and included three goalkeepers and four academy graduates, without a senior start between them. Even calling them 'graduates' was pushing it, for they are yet to leave the academy, in reality.

Those sent into battle, then, were going to have to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. For 20 or so minutes, they made light work of it. 

If Chelsea expected a patched-up Newcastle to preserve energy and safeguard against further injury, they were mistaken. This was fast, furious and not much fun for the visitors.

Amid the red-hot start, Alexander Isak was the one who looked a little cold, even if that was forgivable given a month out with a groin injury. 

Maybe that lulled Chelsea into a false sense of security, for they left the striker all alone in the penalty box on 13 minutes and Miley found the Swede with the cutest of passes. 

There was no sign of any rust as Isak dispatched a gleaming finish into the top corner.

What followed was a brilliant period of home dominance, Miguel Almiron buzzing all around Chelsea like an irritant wasp. 

The sting in the tale for Newcastle was a Chelsea equaliser against the run of play, and largely self-inflicted at that. 

Jamaal Lascelles gave up possession to Nicolas Jackson and Kieran Trippier bundled over Sterling as he made for the penalty area. From the free-kick, 20 yards out, Sterling stunned the ball over the wall and beyond Nick Pope.

At half-time, you could not call a winner. Come the 61st minute, the contest was over. 

On the hour, Gordon delivered from the left and an unmarked Lascelles redeemed himself with a header past Robert Sanchez from six yards. Offside? Well on. Sixty seconds later and Silva's attempted back-pass barely travelled two yards and Joelinton pounced to run clear and finish.

On 73 minutes, James lost the ball to Gordon and responded by tripping the winger at the expense of a red card. It meant Gordon had oceans of space when he was sent clear by Almiron seven minutes from time - Benoit Badiashile ambled over, as if wearily closing the curtains before bed-time - and it soon was curtains for Chelsea when the Newcastle winger tucked into the bottom corner with ease. It had, in truth, been all too easy for Newcastle in the second half.

Chelsea's players must roll up their sleeves after this, if only to avoid their cuffs getting wet when cleaning those pots and pans.