Chelsea Lose Their Title

As Chelsea’s season has crumbled into a succession of disappointments, it has become customary for an increasingly defensive Mourinho to get his excuses in first, so no-one was surprised when in his interview at the Emirates before the Arsenal game – a contest his side had to win to keep their flagging hopes of retaining the Premiership title alive – he recited a list of absent friends and announced, with that characteristic flair for melodrama, that “we do not even have half our first team”.

Sounds ominous doesn’t it? Then you realise that Arsene Wenger could easily stand before the cameras and say ‘I’ll see your Ballack, Shevchenko, Drogba, Cole and Carvalho, and raise you one Henry, one Van Persie, a Rosicky, a Ljungberg and a Walcott – and, by the way, Alex Hleb is on the bench and not fully fit.” But of course he wouldn’t, because that kind of bleating simply isn’t his style.

As things turned out, Arsenal missed their absentees a great deal more than Chelsea missed theirs (apart from Carvalho, that is). Bridge did well, probably better than Cole would have had a mystery injury not conveniently deprived him of the opportunity to face the contempt of the Arsenal faithful. The misfiring Shevchenko and the Strolling Ballack have scarcely played well enough this season to be missed, and in the absence of the mighty Drogba an extraordinary thing happened – Chelsea had to abandon the habit of lumping balls up the front after a few preliminary square and reverse passes and play some proper football and to everyone’s surprise, including Arsenal’s, they did it really well.

The second thing they got right was that after losing the clumsy Boulahrouz and going behind to Gilberto’s magnificent penalty in the 41st minute, the ten men of Chelsea played with the spirit of true champions, refusing to give up their title without fighting to the last, and they were at least rewarded in the 69th minute when Essien thundered in to score from Wright-Phillips’ cross.

But beneath the heroism and the sporadic bursts of quality football the old Chelsea still lingered. The snide challenges from behind. The prime English beef section of Terry and Lampard, arrogantly waddling, pushing, shoving their way through the game and protesting long and loud when an Arsenal player half their size (many of them are) had the audacity to try to mark or tackle them. And the sly Ferreira, ensuring that as early as the 56th minute the loss of Boulahrouz was avenged when after committing a foul he then lunged at Denilson and booked the Brazilian’s premature departure on a stretcher – a cynical and contemptible assault for which a benevolent Alan Wiley did not even produce a card.

At the end of it all, Chelsea deserved their draw and lost their title and following the bitter blow of elimination from the Champions League this means that the best they can attain this season is the Carling Cup (which they were fortunate to win) and perhaps the F.A. Cup. It is, like the quality of most of their football, a poor return for Abramovic’s monumental £500+ million investment, but at least this day proved that Mourinho has got one thing right. The Emirates is, as he conceded, a wonderful stadium and Arsenal do have a magnificent pitch.