MISSION IMPOSSIBLE
Only Tom Cruise could win title for Chelsea, says Jose as Costa f inds net
WHEN the celebration came from Diego Costa, it was almost weary. Certainly, he seemed more relieved than ecstatic.
Moments before he found the net, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho had come off the bench to engage in an animated conversation with his star striker.
‘Just side-foot it!’ seemed to be gist, as he motioned that action. Or get into the box and get on the end of it: something along those line, anyway. Whatever it was, Mourinho’s frustration was growing. Even the fans’ faith might have been wavering. Loic Remy was warming up and Costa’s time seemed limited.
Up until the 64th minute, it was simply one of those afternoons that wasn’t happening for the man who scored 20 goals for the club last season.
Chelsea have had multiple problems in this campaign, but Costa’s form, the failure of Radamel Falcao and unwillingness to trust Remy has been chief among them. To put it into context, Costa has now scored seven goals in his last 27 appearances; he scored seven in his first four games for the club.
So when the quick free-kick from Cesc Fabregas came for Costa from deep and was controlled by the Brazilian-born player, who cut inside Ryan Bennett, there was a moment when you wondered, whether even this clear chance might be spurned.
And then Costa opened up his body, struck the ball with the kind of confidence he carried last season and the ball curled around John Ruddy’s outstretched hand.
The ripple of the net told Costa that his six-game wait was over. And then there was that celebration: Costa simply stood and pointed with one arm to the sky, seemingly thankful his ordeal was over.
‘When you don’t score goals, you get heavier,’ said Mourinho. ‘Every game that you don’t score goals, you get heavy and the pressure is there. But he’s working well, he’s a happy guy and he’s positive.’
But Mourinho was not at all positive about his team’s chances of retaining title after such a poor start — although he did not rule out a Champions League spot.
‘The fourth position is not an impossible mission,’ he said. ‘If you are me about the title I would say: impossible mission. Maybe Tom Cruise can do it for us but it is complicated.
‘I think fourth position is difficult but it is a possible target.’
Indeed, hitting the target proved a huge task for Costa before he made the breakthrough. There was a missed strike on 26 minutes and one worse just before half-time after he had dallied following a Kenedy cross, allowing Ruddy time to set himself to save.
Mourinho’s animated side-footing intervention came as Costa held back rather than drive into the box to connect with a Eden Hazard cross on the hour. ‘With so many pundits in different media, some of them were strikers and know the feeling,’ said Mourinho. ‘ In the first-half he missed two chances. So it was important for him. Important for us, the result and the goal, but I think also for him.
‘Everything is connected. When you are full of confidence it’s not just about goals, it’s also about being fluent.
‘When you lose confidence, you lose this fluent game. Yes, he can do much better, but again, yes, one goal is very important.’
So relief was the order of the day for a Chelsea team who had lost their last three league games. Cos- ta’s lack of fluency is merely a reflection of Chelsea’s own stuttering season. The pertinent question is whether one victory can spark something of a renaissance and the evidence was decidedly mixed.
Norwich started the day above them and did enough in the first 45 minutes to suggest they might add to Chelsea’s woes. The decisive moment came on 33 minutes when Willian clumsily crashed into Robbie Brady inside the area, a clear penalty that referee Craig Pawson declined to award. Conspiracies, it seems, cut both ways.
‘It was a key moment for both teams,’ said manager Alex Neil. ‘Quite a lot this season we haven’t been getting decisions our way and we should have a penalty. We set up with a strategy to frustrate them and hit them on the counter and in the first-half we did that very well.’
Norwich had their moments. Only John Terry diving at full stretch prevented Sebastien Bassong opening the scoring on 42 minutes while Nathan Redmond’s pace exposed the weakness of Chelsea’s back four.
That said, on the plus side, there was a crispness in Chelsea’s buildup, characterised by the continuing return to form from Eden Hazard. At times he dazzled, playing in the No 10 position. But nobody was capable of completing his work; certainly not Costa, until that 64th minute redemption. A few minutes later, a lovely Willian free-kick was met by a Kurt Zouma flick, which rebounded off the crossbar. Brady then forced an excellent save from Asmir Begovic from long-range on 68 minutes. And at the end, Nemanja Matic, who was much improved, had a mazy run that ended with him one-onone with Ruddy and the Norwich keeper needing to be at his best to smother the shot.
But Chelsea had their win and Costa had his goal. And Mourinho, who greeted the final whistle with a little punch of the air, had some respite.