Well, that was crazy. Cole Palmer will grab the headlines on an afternoon in which he was simply irresistible: smarter, faster, more spatial and angle-aware than other players on the field, a man who moves through lighter, thinner air.

It helped that Brighton was sparkly and fun but also incredibly brittle, like a sparkly pair of nylons trying to play football. The score ended at 4-2, but in the end it could have been anything.

Palmer was also brilliantly ruthless, providing further proof that there is no more effective and entertaining No.10 in the Premier League. Gareth Southgate preferred Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Bukayo Saka, also a decent talent, in the summer. But it is inconceivable that any English team could not rely on Palmer’s talent to shape the game in front of him.

Once again the numbers just looked silly. A hat trick in 11 minutes. Four goals in 20 minutes. Six goals and four assists in his last five league games. Palmer has made a habit of playing games where he simply goes on a streak and overwhelms everyone in front of him.

One reason is that it is unusual. In modern elite sport there are very few idiosyncratic, truly unpredictable creative talents. Palmer is as close as you can get, a player who goes anywhere, plays off the cuff and invents the day ahead of him.

It’s a logical, persistent tactic to give him as much ball as possible against heavily trained system teams. The element of surprise is extremely disturbing. When free, imaginative and unplanned moves take you out of your comfort zone, Palmer has the ability to tear a defense apart.

It does help when an opposing manager decides to shoot a whaling harpoon through his own foot, which is basically what Fabian Hürzeler did here, creating, if not the dumbest high defensive line ever, then perhaps the dumbest ever played. Clearly, Hürzeler is an ideologue with a fixed way of playing, even if this way of playing is destined to become an act of self-immolation.

There will be talk of a crazy game and a great half hour. But the form of insanity in the game was Albert Einstein’s definition of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The Brighton line was so high in the first half that one wondered whether Hürzeler had seen Lewis Dunk and Adam Webster play before, neither of whom is likely to be fighting for the world title in the 60-meter indoor event any time soon .

The moment Chelsea figured that out midway through the first half, Brighton fired up, and the game descended into an experiment in how many times Nicolas Jackson could beat Dunk on a straight run from the halfway line (answer: many, many times).

Cue a really weird 10 minutes where the same movement happened over and over again. In the 19th minute, Palmer hit the post after bursting through the middle with a wonderfully quick counterattack. A moment later the same thing happened and Palmer scored but was offside.

Two minutes later he actually scored, the goal coming from a terrible back pass from Webster. Two minutes later, Jadon Sancho scored with the same through ball, but Noni Madueke was ruled offside. In the 27th minute, Chelsea were awarded a penalty as Sancho was brought down after another quick diagonal counterattack. Palmer rolled it into the corner (of course).

Finally, in the 29th minute, Pervis Estupináñ was booked for taking another break after halftime. Palmer delivered the free kick beautifully into the top corner. In the 41st minute he scored his fourth goal, this time in a huge channel on the left side.

It was a surreal interlude, a time when an obvious tactical error overrode all the good work in other areas. Brighton had even taken the lead, Georginio Rutter headed in after a weak Chelsea defense.

Brighton’s second goal was scored by Carlos Baleba, still only 20 points old and a really good all-rounder in midfield (you know who could use something like that? Quick. Sell a piece of wall from the back of the stands).

At the final whistle, this crucial period of chaos seemed to illustrate the pop-up nature of these two football projects and their respective places on the development curve. If Hürzeler has learned a hard lesson, there is no doubt that Chelsea will become more composed, even whispered, somewhat sensible.

Palmer, Madueke, Sancho and Jackson make up a balanced and very lively front four. Yes, the starting XI cost £520 million, even with Levi Colwill and Sancho included on free transfers. But in Palmer, Chelsea have something priceless. Not just a hugely talented player in a tremendous moment of form; But someone who is also an ideal stylistic fit for a team that is learning its own style of play.