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“Arfieeeld, goal for Burnley! Brilliant start for the Clarets!”. It was shortly followed by, “Its Fabregas’ ball, its Schurrle’s goal… and so early in the season, can you say that this is the response of Champions?” These were Martin Tyler’s words in commentary during Chelsea’s match against Burnley on the opening day of the Barclays Premier League 2014-15 season.
The Blues were 1-0 down due to Scott Arfield’s goal and they turned it around and took the lead through Schurrle’s goal. From that point on there was no looking back. Chelsea marched on towards a 5th title in their history and 4th in the Premier League era.
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Jim Beglin aptly summed up Chelsea’s season on the last day. “They dazzled, they dampened, and they delivered.” These three words just were a true reflection of the Blues’ season. The dazzling happened during the first half of the season, the dampening in the second half of the season and the delivering with 3 games to spare.
Records were set and goals scored with relative ease during the dazzling period made Chelsea look invincible and talks of emulating Arsenal’s magnificent ‘invincibles’ season started doing the rounds. But the draw specialists Sunderland came calling and a stubborn display was the catalyst for a major change in tactics.
Diego Costa, the tormentor-in-chief, Cesc Fabregas, the ever present and alert midfielder were the forerunners of the dazzling period. Eden Hazard, in sublime form and in a class of his own, Oscar and Willian with their Brazilian flair all contributed to a spectacle of world-class football in matches.
They just made games look so simple and easy. Be it at Stamford Bridge or any other stadium, teams just could not stop Chelsea.
Lightning struck and Mourinho’s St. James’ Park jinx came to haunt him again. Newcastle had beaten Chelsea. As Jim Proudfoot, the commentator put it, “There can be no talk about invincibles anymore”, they finally stumbled.
The final nail in the coffin for the death of the dazzling period came in a crushing defeat against Tottenham on the first day of the year, when Chelsea’s defence conceded 5 goals.
To top it, a defeat against lowly Bradford City in the FA Cup accelerated the need for a change in tactics.
In his press conference after the match, the manager described the defeat as a ‘shame’ and admitted that his players did not play well.” The dampening period was about to begin.
Chelsea’s more pragmatic approach
Defence and not attack became the club’s priority. It was time for John Terry, Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic to strut their stuff. And boy, they did. The work of Hazard, Fabregas and Willian was just to pass the ball amongst themselves and slow the game down.
If nothing was working, they passed the ball backward. Teams got frustrated, fans got frustrated, but no bother, just sit back and defend. The only requirement was a win.
Therefore, one goal was enough for that. Predictably, results of Chelsea matches were wins by a solitary goal, and you had to be really bad on that day to concede more than that. Who better than Swansea would know this? The Blues’s last convincing win came in a 5-0 thumping of the Welsh side in their own stomping ground.
It was not that this worked immediately, because having been already out of the FA Cup, and just edging Liverpool in the League Cup, the team got punished for this, when PSG knocked them out of the Champions League, the trophy that Mourinho, although having won it with previous clubs, desperately wanted to win it with the Blues.
Significant games were the away trips to West Ham, Aston Villa and Hull City, where Chelsea were in real danger of losing those games. Captain John Terry himself admitted in an interview that the QPR game where a late Cesc Fabregas goal secured all three points for Chelsea was a crucial game as his team had to garner those points before the tougher games against Manchester United and Arsenal.
The height of this dampening period, or to put it in other words, the shine of it, was the game against Arsenal at the Emirates. ‘Boring Boring Chelsea’ rung out around the stadium, memes were generated, and Twitter was abuzz with criticism.
Images of John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic jumping in joy at the final whistle were greeted with loud boos, but the objective was achieved.
After the match, Jose Mourinho said that John Terry had given a lesson in defending and kids should learn from him. They had denied the Gunners’ two points and taken a huge step towards clinching the title, which was duly achieved with a scrappy 1-0 win against Crystal Palace.
It was just to show the world that in football, only results matter and it’s all about accumulating points. It doesn’t matter, how you win, it is that you win a football match. Chelsea did just that, and they did it with aplomb.
Takeaways
It was party time now, the pressure was off. Three games were just exhibition friendlies in truth. Who would blame them for not ruining Steven Gerrard’s last tryst with their club and for putting the foot off the gas against West Brom? Against Sunderland, however, a win was vital to end the season, and again they delivered.
Mourinho, in his first season of arrival, admitted that the club’s failure to win silverware in that season was because of a transitional change in the club. He asked Roman Abramovich for what he wanted and who he wanted, with the promise that he would deliver, and he did. Needless to say, Chelsea won the League Cup also along with the Barclays Premier League.
Didier Drogba bid goodbye to the club. In his last match, it was very heart-warming to see him carried off the pitch by his teammates as a mark of respect to his contribution to the club.
John Terry played every minute of the Premier League season, which is an achievement in itself, given that he is nearing the twilight of his career. Eden Hazard was duly named the PFA Player of the Year along with Club Player of the Year and Club Players’ Player of the Year for his stellar season where he has become one of the world’s most-feared players under Mourinho with some even comparing him to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, two of the greatest players of this generation.
Diego Costa was sublime in the first half of the season and to put it in Gary Weaver’s words was tearing Premier League defences apart. Plagued by injuries in the second half of the season, he could not feature in many games. Still 20 goals in 24 starts is not a bad return at all.
Cesc Fabregas was a good recruit too and finished the season with 18 assists. Loic Remy was effective too scoring crucial goals in different games namely against Stoke City and Hull City.
A season to remember, a season to savour, a season of celebration, the season it was for Chelsea.
Mourinho has laid emphasis on the fact that this Premier League title win will be the start of a new era of Chelsea dominance over the years to come. It is also worth emphasising that the club will surely not sit back and will continue to push for more silverware.
The only thing to guard against is the settling in of this defensive approach and establishing a balance between that scintillating first half of the season display and the business-minded second half of the season display.
The fans couldn’t agree with their manager more. The next season awaits and the challenge is to go and win.
