On the day the team flies to America, I thought it appropriate to begin with a question sent in from the United States, but only if everyone can bear the pain briefly as the subject is penalty shoot-outs.
Jeff Shelters turns the clock back to the third round of the 05/06 Carling Cup against Charlton when after a 1-1 draw, Chelsea lost 4-5 on penalties.
Jeff has been surfing the web to find a list of the penalty kick takers for both clubs but has so far been unsuccessful and has therefore called for help.
Beginning with the Chelsea penalty takers in that London derby, Arjen Robben and Robert Huth failed to score while Eidur Gudjohnsen, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba scored. It was not the best game of Huth's Chelsea career as his under-headed back pass led to the equaliser in normal time.
All the Charlton takers scored on the night - Darren Bent, Jay Bothroyd, Matt Holland, Hermann Hreidarsson and Bryan Hughes.
The manager back then was José Mourinho who will be in opposition in the US next week, and that brings us onto an email from Jack van der Mijn.
He has recently been doing what many Chelsea fans have to - uphold his club's honour when in discussion with Liverpool and Man United fans.
Jack's argument has been taking place in Holland and centres on Chelsea's style of playing under Mourinho. His acquaintances claim that Chelsea were purely defensive back then, and Jack wants statistics to counter that.
A simple set of figures I would suggests is the number of goals scored, which in Mourinho's three full seasons were:
2004/05 - 108 goals which is Chelsea sixth equal highest total ever.
2005/06 - 96 goals which was a decline in scoring prowess from the previous year, however…
2006/07 - 117 goals were scored which was the second equal highest total ever.
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Robbie Chin Wai Kit from Malaysia asks a question about last season's Golden Boot winner and a memorable part of the progress towards winning the FA Cup.
Robbie asks if the hat-trick scored by Nicolas Anelka in the tie against Watford (pictured top) is the fastest ever hat-trick scored by a Chelsea player?
The goals that turned a 1-0 deficit into a 3-1 win at the end of the second half at Vicarage Road were spread over a 15-minute period. That's certainly a rapid rate but unfortunately it is impossible to state exactly where this stands among hat-tricks over the full course of Chelsea history. That's because for many years the time when goals hit the net was not recorded.
However in March 2004 at home to Wolves, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink came off the bench to score a similarly late hat-trick in a 5-2 win. The length of time between his first goal and his third? It was 15 minutes as well.
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Believe it or not it is now only two months until the team will be back in Champions League action once more.
Guillaume, quite rightly, suggests that given our recent lengthy campaigns in this competition, some of our current players must have racked up a fair few Champions League appearances. The request is for some exact numbers, which I will do for the highest totals. In a couple of cases those are now in excess of 50.
The current list is:
Frank Lampard - 65 games
John Terry - 61
Didier Drogba - 49
Petr Cech - 47
Joe Cole - 46
Ricardo Carvalho - 42
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There is no definitive answer form me for the next one I am afraid but I think it is one of those questions it will be fun to throw open to everyone reading to help with.
Michael emails to say: 'I just caught a clip of the film Robbery on ITV from 1967 and there was a scene where the characters discussed robbing a train whilst watching a football match with one of the teams wearing Chelsea colours.
He asks if this was a Chelsea team or not and whether a Chelsea team in action has otherwise featured in any film or TV programme?
The question falls outside what I would term statistics so I have no records to check upon regarding Robbery. That's why I am asking for help on this.
There was an early episode of the old ITV drama Minder that was filmed during a match at Stamford Bridge but I'll also need help if a list of on-screen appearances by the team is to be put together.
Out of the blue I have received an answer to another query I threw open way back in December when John Keely emailed in wanting to know the whereabouts of Steve Francis, our former goalkeeper who came into the side as a teenager in 1981.
Francis was first choice until the arrival of Eddie Niedzwiecki in 1983 and left Chelsea in 1987.
Simon Ebdon has been in contact and writes:
'I work with Steve Francis who works as a postman in Henley in Arden and is a quiet and assuming guy who doesn't talk about football at all unless asked, but is liked by all.
'He laughed when we put some old photos on the wall at the sorting office of him in goal for Chelsea when Chelsea beat Liverpool 2-0 in the FA Cup.'
Thanks very much for solving that one Simon.
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Let's wind the clock back a bit further now and deal with two enquires sent in about the 1940s and the 1920s.
Dealing with the earlier one, Alex Morison tells me that his grandfather, William, was on the Chelsea staff from 1924-27 but only featured in one first team match during that time. Alex asks for the name of the team he played against and when and where the game took place.
The Chelsea records actually spell the name William Morrison with a double 'r', so there is a discrepancy there, but what is for certain is that Alex's grandfather was a Scottish forward whose one appearance was a Division Two game against South Shields, the result a 1-1 draw.
He played centre-forward and Chelsea's scorer was one of our most famous players of the era - Andy Wilson, who featured in the list of international captains we compiled in past Ask Statmans.
Played on April 20 1925, it was the third to last game of a season in which Chelsea finished fifth and South Shields ninth.
John Weaver has written in for some detail on a Chelsea v Bolton game on June 2nd 1945 that was watched by his father. I'll let John take up the story.
'He was in the Royal Engineers and was on leave in London. He said it was hastily arranged to celebrate VE Day which had been on 8th May 1945. After much searching I found the official programme in my attic
'He had seen the semi final at Chelsea between Arsenal and Millwall, and even though Arsenal had Ted Drake playing, plus Stan Mortensen from Blackpool, they lost 1-0.
'He said the atmosphere for that VE Day Final match was the best ever, for obvious reasons - a real celebration. He had wanted to take me to the game (I was just 10 weeks old) but my mother vetoed the idea. But he insisted in adding Victor as my middle name to celebrate victory in Europe.'
Adding a little more detail to John's story, I can report that the game was a War Time Cup play-off which Chelsea lost 2-1 at home to Bolton.
Ronnie Rooke, who we discussed in a previous Ask Statman, was a guest from Fulham and scored Chelsea's goal.'
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Jay Mardia, a regular correspondent from India has requested the name of the first foreign player to play for Chelsea, which we will define as overseas, especially given the huge Scottish contingent in our first ever team.
The player was Nils Middleboe from Denmark who in 10 war-interrupted years between 1913 and 1922 played 46 games. An amateur, his position was what was known in those days as a half-back.
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Daniel Kelly asks what he confesses is not really a stat question as such, but fortunately it is one I can answer.
He asks against who and when did Dan Petrescu score and celebrate by running straight to a TV camera and yelling 'What a goal!' - except there was another word in the sentence. I've left it out, Daniel didn't.
The game was a famous one - Gianluca Vialli's first in charge and a League Cup semi-final second leg at home to Arsenal on February 18th 1998. After Mark Hughes scored and Roberto Di Matteo had smashed in a wonderful long-distance strike, Petrescu tiptoed past a challenge to score the third in a 3-1 win to help send the team to Wembley.
That's a good memory with which to end this time. I want to thank Chris Davison from Kent for pointing out a slip in a previous Ask Statman and please email any new queries, corrections or comments to statman@chelseafc.com
I have an inbox with plenty of questions yet to be answered which I hope to clear soon, so apologies if you are waiting.
