Feeble finish to a pathetic title defence
IT is traditional for FA Cup finalists to enjoy a stroll around the pitch in the sunshine before the big game. They usually do that at Wembley and are wearing suits.
Here, 300 miles north at St James’ Park and sporting next season’s home kit, Antonio Conte’s Chelsea side sauntered through the final match of their lame Premier League title defence and were duly swept aside by a team who had lost their last four.
The good news for Chelsea supporters is that their players should be fresh for Saturday’s showcase encounter with Manchester United. The bad news is that this was a long way to come to watch them barely lift a leg and miss out on Champions League football.
The weather was nice, at least. The Cup final is likely to be Conte’s last game in charge of Chelsea and his body language here — not to mention the absence of his customary designer suit — smacked of disinterest.
He shrugged his shoulders after Newcastle’s third and hadn’t looked bothered by the previous two. The Italian emerged to say that the hosts had out-played them. They had, of course, but that would suggest his men had been trying and were simply outdone.
Not so. Chelsea played with all the urgency of a second-class stamp and victory proved easy for Rafa Benitez’s side, who protected their top-10 finish thanks to a double from Ayoze Perez after Dwight Gayle’s opener. When Conte comes to pick his team for Wembley, the first six names should be yesterday’s outfield substitutes.
‘If we play like this in the FA Cup final we don’t have a chance,’ he said. ‘We have six days to change our approach, our desire, our will to fight. For this, I’m the first person to answer — I am the coach.’
That is part of the problem. Were
someone else in charge, this team would not have finished their season 23 points and 23 goals worse off than last term.
Conte says he will be manager next year, but that sounds more like the talk of a man protecting a handsome severance package. He is hardly going to admit it’s arrivederci after next weekend, is he?
Newcastle fans, meanwhile, will be hoping that this is not adios from their manager. ‘Rafa Benitez, we want you to stay,’ they implored during a post-match lap of honour.
Pressed on his future, Benitez (below) said: ‘What I would like is to be sure that the team is able to compete to finish above 10th.
‘That means having the right quality, the right mentality and the right level through the whole season, not just for some performances.’
This would have ranked as one of the club’s best displays of recent years, had it not been against a bunch who looked more like play-onthe-pitch competition winners.
Jonjo Shelvey was outstanding and said afterwards that he wants to go to the World Cup.
But this was no test of his England credentials, for Panama will provide more resistance than this.
That said, he is a class act who is in the form of his life and should be on the plane to Russia. Compare him to yesterday’s opponent Ross Barkley, who was hooked in the second half after an anonymous display. Barkley was not alone in that regard. Tiemoue Bakayoko — at £40million — was out-fought and out-thought by Mo Diame, who cost one tenth of that inflated fee. But if Chelsea’s players were saving themselves for the Cup final then they had not spared a thought for goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. It was like watching a kid in the playground protecting the only goal as all of his class-mates took aim.
There was only so long that he could endure, however, and Gayle headed Newcastle in front from close range on 23 minutes.
Olivier Giroud did come within a fingertip of Martin Dubravka’s glove of scoring a late contender for goal of the season, improvising to turn a flying back-heel towards the far corner early in the second half.
Dubravka, though, somehow scrambled to claw clear.
Perez had his first on 59 minutes, applying the faintest of flicks to a Shelvey shot to divert beyond a rooted Courtois from 10 yards.
The Spaniard’s second arrived just four minutes later but not before Barkley had fired straight at Dubravka from just six yards out, the same distance from which Perez turned in moments later. The contest — if you could even call it that — petered out to the backdrop of home supporters serenading Benitez.
There was, however, no song for Conte. He and Chelsea have been out of tune for far too long.