Chelsea, Champions, Changing

As you probably know by now, my favorite team, Chelsea FC, have been crowned champions of England, and I have a few words to say about it (these words would have come sooner had I not been in a state of celebratory delirium since Sunday).

Changing Chelsea

Perhaps a better word than changing to describe Chelsea this term would be adapting. (but that doesn't alliterate that well with Chelsea and Champions does it now?) Jose Mourinho's hallmark as a manager has always been his ability to adapt not only to his opponent, but to how his team is currently playing and the injuries they have, and we perhaps haven't seen him better at it than this season at the Blues. This ability is what I believe sets him head and shoulders above any other manager in football. Guardiola has struggled recently (he did at Barca as well) when he doesn't have all his players fit, Ancelotti has struggled to get the best out of his Madrid side when they aren't firing on all cylinders. Jose continued to get the results even when faced with these challenges.

For the first half of the season, Jose had virtually a full-strength side, and all of his players were sprinting out of the gate. As a result, we had results like the 5-0 thrashing of Swansea and the swashbuckling 6-3 win against Everton. Costa was scoring, Fabregas was creating, and almost every other player was pitching in as well in some way or another (Ivanovic scored some, Courtois had important saves, Matic even got on the score sheet).

Then Chelsea vs. Tottenham happened and Mourinho realized it was time to shuffle the tactics. Costa has been in and out (mostly out) during the second half of the season, and Remy went down as well. When you play a 4-2-3-1, as Mourinho had the entire season, you HAVE to have a firing striker to play attacking football, and Mou didn't. Drogba was brought on, and he did what work he could (at the ripe old age of 37) but he was never going to provide the kind of killer instinct that those above him in the pecking order did, so Jose was forced to switch to a more defensive style and wait for the goals to come on the break.

"Boring, Boring Chelsea!"

"You know, I think boring is 10 years without a title. That's very boring." -Jose Mourinho

Leave it to Mou to conjure up the perfect comeback to any criticism. But in reality? I agree with him (isn't that a surprise). Matic put it perfectly in saying that nobody will remember in five or ten years HOW Chelsea won the title, just that they DID win the title. Let's put this into perspective: Chelsea, with three games left, have scored the second most goals in the league, and have conceded the least amount of goals in the league, and their goal difference is a full SEVEN goals better than the closest challenger. I don't know about you, but I don't see the purpose of watching beautiful attacking football if my team leaves itself open at the back because of it and concedes a fair amount as well. Mourinho has always been a defend first, attack second manager, and look where it's got him. His three Premier League titles are second most of any manager (nobody will ever catch Ferguson), and Chelsea hold a whopping 13 point lead at the top of the table!

Chelsea have scored a lot of goals this season, people forget so quickly that at the turn of the year, Costa was top scorer in the league and Fabregas is STILL has the most assists in the league. Why? Because Chelsea knows how to play attacking football, but they also know how to defend when they need to.

A perfect example of this is when Manchester United came to the Bridge a few weeks ago. The goals were flowing for them and they were flying high, on a run of 4 straight wins and coming off a 4-2 victory over City. The goals for Chelsea, on the other hand, had seemed to have dried up, and with our first and second choice strikers out, Mourinho decided that playing attacking football against United would be a costly mistake because we wouldn't be able to hold the ball in United's half without Costa or Remy. So he decided to allow United to have the ball as much as they wanted (they held a whopping 70% possession in that match) but limit their opportunities. Despite all their possession, United had 2 shots on target the entire game, which just so happened to be the same number of shots on target that Chelsea had. Chelsea hit back when United committed too many forward, and Mourinho's game plan paid off. Is that boring? Heavens no, it's playing the correct tactics when you understand the opponent and the way your team is currently performing. Van Gaal obstinately decided to play his same game plan regardless of the opponent and he lost.


A note in closing:

I'm hearing a lot of talk that the only reason Chelsea won the league this season was because the rest of the league was weak. Let's look at that:

Chelsea currently have 83 points, and for arguments sake lets say they win the rest of their games this season, they will have 92 points. Last season, City won the league with 86 points. The season before, United won it with 89 points, and the season before that City won it with 89 points. So, IF Chelsea win the last three games, they will only have accrued a point total that is three more than two of the last three seasons! That's a difference of one game! Don't tell me that the competition is weaker, Chelsea are just the best team in the league this season, and the numbers show it.


Joga Bonito

Dallin Lindstrom