Chelsea clinches Premier League
• The five-year drought is over. Chelsea is Premier League champion again — with three games to spare.
Chelsea’s players danced around the field after securing the title with a scrappy 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace on Sunday that encapsulated the recent cautious pragmatism of José Mourinho’s team.
“Today was not a game to enjoy,” Mourinho said. “Today was the game to finish the job.”
But it was a trophy that was really won in the opening months of the season, with Chelsea having been atop the standings from the opening week. With only two losses in 35 games, Chelsea was rarely troubled in its pursuit of a fourth league title in 11 seasons — and the fifth in its 110-year history.
“This is unbelievable, we’ve worked so hard this year to get over the line,” captain John Terry said as the blue and white streamers descended on the Stamford Bridge field. “Today was a tough match, a little bit nervous, but we got over the line.”
Fittingly, the title-winning goal came from Eden Hazard, a week after the Belgium winger’s dynamic, individual displays were honoured by his fellow professionals with the player of the year award.
Although Hazard’s weak penalty kick was saved by Palace goalkeeper Julian Speroni at the end of the first half, the Belgian headed in the rebound for his 14th league goal of the season.
The victory was enough to establish an insurmountable 13-point lead and dethrone Manchester City, which has now failed in both its title defences since 2012 despite heavy investment from its Abu Dhabi ownership. Chelsea is 16 points ahead of Arsenal, which has five games left.
“We showed absolutely everything since Day 1, everything football demands from a team,” Mourinho said. “We had fantastic attacking football, we had fantastic domination ... we defended amazingly well.”
The team also won the League Cup in March and Mourinho’s third Premier League title success confirms that the Portuguese coach is back at the pinnacle of management in England.
Chelsea had only won the topflight once in its first century — in 1955 — when Mourinho delivered the Premier League title a decade ago after the club’s fortunes were transformed following the 2003 takeover by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Mourinho defended the title in 2006 before losing a power struggle with Abramovich the following year and going off to win titles for Inter Milan and Real Madrid. During Mourinho’s six-year absence, Chelsea won the league only once in 2010 under Carlo Ancelotti and the Portuguese manager returned to Chelsea with the club’s finances now constrained by UEFA Financial Fair Play rules.
“When you go back to a place where you had success before, you risk a little bit your prestige and history,” Mourinho said. “But I won again, and now I can say I won titles for Chelsea with two different generations. ... A new team won.” Manager José Mourinho was intelligent and decisive in the off-season to bolster the vulnerable areas of his squad as he attempted to turn Chelsea from a “little horse” — as he described the team during last season’s title race — to the thoroughbred it has become.
Chelsea lacked a worldclass striker last season, so Mourinho signed Diego Costa — the Spain international who guided Atletico Madrid to the Spanish title in 2013-14. Despite struggling with persistent hamstring and groin problems, Costa has scored 19 goals in the league.
In, too, came Cesc Fabregas from Barcelona to solve the issue of limited creativity in central midfield. Fabregas was a revelation in the first half of the season and has contributed a league-high 17 assists — three short of the Premier League record.
Mourinho also decided to bring goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois back from his loan spell at Atletico and make him the starting No. 1 ahead of Petr Cech. It was a tough call but it has proved the right one, with Courtois a calm and commanding presence behind Chelsea’s sold defence. Chelsea lay down a marker with an opening-round 3-1 win at Burnley that featured some dazzling goals and intricate moves. In the next away game, the Blues put six goals past Everton.
In their opening 12 games, they won 10 and drew two — both away from home to Manchester City and Manchester United.
That set the tone for the season and although there was a slight dip around Christmas when Chelsea lost twice and drew at home to Southampton in a six-game span, Mourinho’s side soon recovered and hasn’t lost since Jan. 1. Championship teams need every player to do their job, but one usually stands out — and in Chelsea’s case, it’s been Eden Hazard.
The Belgium winger’s status rose to world-class in a season when he has scored 18 goals in all competitions and been the player Chelsea has turned to in difficult moments. His close control and technique is unmatched in the Premier League and he has added an end product to his undoubted flair.
French legend Zinedine Zidane, who coaches Real Madrid’s B team, recently expressed his admiration for Hazard but Mourinho won’t be selling his star player any time soon. Indeed, Mourinho has said it would take a bid of “£100 millionSPORTS” for “each leg” to lure Hazard away from Stamford Bridge.
Hazard was voted by his fellow professionals as England’s player of the year last
weekend. Chelsea was fortunate that its Champions League campaign didn’t take much out of the team, allowing plenty of focus for its domestic matches.
The team was placed in arguably the easiest of the eight groups, containing Schalke, Maribor and Sporting Lisbon. Chelsea qualified with a match to spare by beating Schalke 5-0 away and key players were rested for the final group game.
Elimination in the last 16 at the hands of Paris Saint Germain had a silver lining — Chelsea could focus entirely on the Premier League, as it had already been knocked out of the FA Cup by then. Chelsea picked up 17 of 21 points since its European exit. Mourinho is regarded as one of world soccer’s top tacticians and he has shown just why this season.
Content to churn out away draws against his major rivals early in the season, Mourinho got his tactics spot-on over the past couple of months as the Premier League trophy loomed into view.
Chelsea beat Man United 1-0 at home with just 29.7 per cent possession, then produced a masterful defensive display to draw 0-0 at Arsenal — barely giving up a shot at goal.
In recent weeks, Mourinho has batted away suggestions that his team has been “boring,” saying it is winning that really counts. But critics should not forget the effervescent attacking displays that lit up the first half of the season.
Throw in a bit of luck — a 1-0 win at QPR in April was achieved with just one shot on target — and Chelsea has had a pretty much unstoppable combination.