The Warm-Up: City's gain, Harry Kane and an empty stadium in troubled Spain

With due respect to Chelsea’s win over Tottenham at Wembley, this was perhaps the season’s first headline clash of the title contenders, and the bookies could barely split them before kick-off. Marginal edges were declared on both sides at Stamford Bridge: Manchester City arrived without Sergio Aguero and Benjamin Mendy, but Chelsea legs had been granted 24 hours less to recover from their Champions League exploits.

The extra workload for Conte’s side was always going to be a significant influence on their title defence, a perch from which (as their painful 2015/16 season will testify) the only way is often down. Their Atletico-defying exertions less than 72 hours earlier appeared to tell: Alvaro Morata – who had never before in his career started six games in a row – trudged off clutching a hamstring after half an hour, while the midfield gunships of N’Golo Kante and Tiemoue Bakayoko were outmanoeuvred from virtually the first minute to the last.

But this wasn’t all about Chelsea’s toil. Pep Guardiola anticipated Conte’s 3-5-1-1 shape and flooded the midfield, allowing his full-backs (if that’s what we can still call them) to venture inside. Kyle Walker and Fabian Delph were like daggers from deep, leaving David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne to apply salt to the wounds.

De Bruyne, once again exploiting Chelsea’s alarmingly soft centre, made the decisive breakthrough. There isn’t a great deal of fuss about the way he operates – no sixpence spins or unnecessary nutmegs – but his precision is currently without equal. The tidiness with which he strode forward, bounced the ball off Gabriel Jesus, and swept the ball beyond Courtois rendered the hosts’ aimless, clumsy huffing and puffing irrelevant. It was about as comprehensive a 1-0 victory as they come.

Sooner or later, we’re going to have to have some sort of Big Harry Kane Debate – perhaps a national referendum, they’re always fun – to establish just what it is that some people aren’t getting about him.

Thirteen goals in eight games is unquestionably the stuff of Ballons d’Or and Real Madrid presidential election manifestos, but…still. Never before (off the top of this correspondent’s head, anyway) has a striker managed to make relentless goalscoring look so effortless and yet so ordinary. Huddersfield were the latest team to be put to the sword by his repertoire of ambling forward shuttles and ambidextrous swats and strokes of the ball into the corner of the net.

Perhaps it’s the impression that his skill set has been carved out on the training ground through sheer repetition, dedication and education rather than being present in his footballing DNA as a 16-year-old wonderkid with the world at his feet.

Some stadiums really look weird when they’re empty. From a football perspective (and only that), Barcelona maintaining their 100% La Liga record with a 3-0 win over Las Palmas in front of 98,000 unoccupied seats was a novelty you couldn’t ignore.

Amid chaotic scenes across Catalonia sparked by the independence referendum, Barcelona opted to proceed with the game behind closed doors. Designed to be a protest against the league’s refusal to postpone the fixture, the decision nevertheless left thousands of fans outside the stadium as Lionel Messi’s 13th and 14th goals of the season did the business inside. The tidiness of Barcelona’s start to the season – and their 1000th La Liga clean sheet – was in sharp contrast to the violent scenes nearby.

The players couldn’t ignore it, either. Gerard Pique, who had cast his vote the previous day, didn’t resort to footballing platitudes. “For many years people could not vote here and this is a right that should be defended by all means within the law possible. I am Catalan and I feel Catalan and today more than ever I feel proud of the Catalan people.

“It was very difficult to play without our supporters and after all that has happened throughout Catalonia. It was my worst experience as a player.”

The following footage of Lyon’s Marcelo being sent off may infuriate you slightly. It may make you want to reach through your screen and explain to the referee what has actually happened, before he thrusts the red card into their air. Or you may just find the whole thing very funny.

In the pantheon of unorthodox early baths, this may be one of the most unfortunate.

The Guardian’sMichael Lewis marks the 40th anniversary of the curtain coming down on Pelé’s incredible career, the final chapter of which – the New York Cosmos – is perhaps the most compelling of all.

BT Sport, it’s fair to say, have thrown the kitchen sink at their football coverage. Saturday offered up the spectacle of daytime TV’s Jeff Brazier daring to attempt a mid-match, pitchside interview with Billericay’s notorious manager-owner-supremo Glenn Tamplin.

Possibly our favourite bit here is that split-second when Tamplin – mid-injustice – notices Brazier’s hand on his shoulder, at the precise moment that Jeff Brazier’s hand really should not be on Glenn Tamplin’s shoulder.

Meanwhile, over on Match of the Day 2…

There is, the Warm-Up is reliably informed, an honest explanation for this – something to do with voice-recognition software and the word “comma” – but it does look very unfortunate.

38 years ago tomorrow: 2-1 down from 1st leg, Dinamo Tbilisi stormed back to beat Liverpool in the first round of the European Cup.

But, to be honest, the best thing about this is the “GREETINGS TO THE SPORTSMEN OF ENGLAND” message emblazoned down the side of the pitch. Things were different then.

Unless you’re all over Glentoran v Crusaders in the Northern Irish Premiership tonight, tuck into a good book or fire up Netflix, because it’s the international break. Who have England got? Slovenia, Slovakia, who cares.