IT WAS NOT A CRISIS BY THE standards of any other club but half-time at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday represented a crisis of sorts for Chelsea. Weary and sloppy, the treble-chasers were surrendering the momentum that they had worked so hard to build during nine months of hard campaigning. If they could not summon the energy to drag themselves over the Barclays Premiership finishing line, it was hard to see how they would find the strength to overcome Liverpool in tomorrow’s European Cup semi-final, second leg.
After a season founded on resolve and resourcefulness, Chelsea were giving a performance against Bolton Wanderers that could only be described as half-hearted. If they thought that they could get away with it, José Mourinho, this extraordinary combination of managerial fire and ice, made his players think again. The Portuguese manager’s message was not delivered via a Powerpoint presentation or one of the tactical dossiers favoured by this most modern of managers but a good old- fashioned telling off. “I’ll go out there,” he told his players. “I can do better.”
“He was fuming,” John Terry said. “He was going, ‘Listen, give me the shirt, give Steve Clarke (the assistant manager) the shirt,’ and they would go out and work harder than we had done. Sometimes you aren’t going to play well (but it doesn’t matter) as long as you give 100 per cent, but we didn’t. Bolton were the first to headers, the first to tackles. José said he would put himself out there and do a lot better than we were doing. He told us to get out there and show how much we wanted to win the title. And we did.”
Forty-five minutes later, the dressing-room was awash with champagne and adrenalin. “I’m buzzing, I’m on top of the world,” Joe Cole said. The midfield player was certainly on top of the team bus, having clambered up through the hatch to stand on the roof and squirt water over a sea of beaming faces.
There was joy but also relief that the club’s first championship in 50 years had been secured before they resume their European Cup semi- final battle against Liverpool. It does not guarantee that they will triumph at Anfield tomorrow, when Damien Duff will be fit to start and the neurotic Arjen Robben might also declare himself available for selection, but there is no thought now of failure.
They might yet come crashing back to earth more painfully than if Cole had slipped off the top of the coach but this has been a momentous season whatever happens in Liverpool. Claiming the domestic crown was always the most important part of the empire-building at Stamford Bridge and, with the youth of the squad and the certainty of reinforcements, it will be a brave man who bets against them retaining their trophy.
Mourinho is ready to prove that “my heart is with Chelsea” and he knew that five minutes after securing the title, live on television, was a good time to raise the subject of his new £5 million-plus contract. His agent, Jorge Mendes, is in England this week when talks should resume. Mourinho knows his own worth: the title takes his haul of trophies to seven — and counting — in three dazzling seasons.
Any analysis of Chelsea’s triumph must contain at least one reference to Roman Abramovich and the millions of pounds he has poured into a club that had been tottering towards bankruptcy. The Russian billionaire was showered with champagne in the dressing-room before taking a congratulatory telephone call from Gianfranco Zola, the former Chelsea maestro, but far from overshadowing his players, the Russian has been shoved into the background by the excellence of his highly paid employees. Men such as Petr Cech, Frank Lampard, Claude Makelele and Terry as well, of course, as the mercurial Mourinho, the serial trophy-winner and drama queen.
At his first press conference in England, Mourinho was told that he would have to win the title and reach the European Cup final to improve on Claudio Ranieri, his predecessor. He was utterly unfazed. “We have top players at Chelsea,” he said. “And, I’m sorry if I sound arrogant, we have a top manager as well. I don’t want to be compared with coaches from the past — nor do I want to be viewed as the face of young managers in the game. I have won the Champions League. I’m not one who comes straight out of the bottle — I’m a special one.”
We wondered if he would be quite so cocky a few months into the season. Arsenal were the Invincibles while Manchester United had just signed Wayne Rooney. Chelsea, it should be remembered, were few people’s favourites.
Now everyone wonders how they can ever be knocked off the top. Terry will receive the trophy after next Saturday’s home game against Charlton Athletic as well as the medal to add to his collection of every shirt and captain’s armband from the campaign. “I certainly hope we can dominate English football,” he said. “We have got the squad, a young side that wants to win and do things together.
“It feels very emotional. I just want to break down and I probably will when I get back to my hotel room on my own, when I sit back and watch it on TV. It will mean an awful lot to my family and friends but more importantly it will mean a lot to my players, to the people I train and work with every day and every week. We have made a lot of sacrifices and it’s paid off on the pitch.”
Terry has been immense but perhaps the last word should go to Frank Lampard, whose seventeenth and eighteenth goals of the season secured the title in the second half against Bolton. Jubilant, the England midfield player was also eager to answer some criticism.
“There have been some harsh words spoken about us not being entertaining and that the best two teams in the Premiership are in the final of the FA Cup, but the best team wins the league and we have done that,” Lampard said. “You look at Arsenal, who have drawn at Bolton, and Man United, who have lost. We have come and won so the others should take a look. We know that we are definitely the best.
“After all the emotion of the season, to finally win it is such a release. Now we’re going to Anfield as champions. And if that doesn’t fill you with confidence nothing will.”
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
CHELSEA CANNOT HAVE EXPECTED a smooth ride when they enlisted the services of José Mourinho. He had “form” in Portugal, often raging against authority. And Chelsea have faced 12 separate disciplinary charges since the Portuguese strode into Stamford Bridge. Two months into the season, the club was charged by the FA, along with West Ham United, with failing to ensure the proper behaviour of fans during their Carling Cup tie.
Soon Mourinho was taking on the world. After the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final against Manchester United, he described the second half as “whistle after whistle, fault after fault, cheat after cheat”. Guilty of improper conduct, he was fined £5,000 and warned about his conduct.
February was a bad month. Chelsea were fined £15,000 after a brawl in their Barclays Premiership match against Blackburn Rovers. After their European Cup match against Barcelona in the Nou Camp, Uefa charged Chelsea, Mourinho, Steve Clarke, his assistant, and Les Miles, the club’s security officer, with making false declarations about an alleged half-time chat between Anders Frisk, the Swedish referee, and Frank Rijkaard, the Barcelona coach. The upshot? A £33,000 fine for Chelsea and £9,000 for Mourinho.
Mourinho collected another warning for his “silence” gesture to Liverpool fans during the Carling Cup final, and the affair of an alleged illegal approach to Ashley Cole, the Arsenal left back, rumbles on.
RUSSELL KEMPSON
CHELSEA NUMBERS
23 players used in the Premiership by Chelsea this season
34 players used by Southampton, the bottom club
22 international players in the Chelsea first-team squad
32 age of Claude Makelele, the oldest first-team regular
131 games played by Frank Lampard in all competitions in the past 20 months
12 first-team appearances by Winston Bogarde in four years at Chelsea 6 players signed by José Mourinho
70,000,000 total cost in pounds of those players 9 Claudio Ranieri signings in the matchday 16 that beat Fulham a week last Saturday
20 wage in pounds of Chic Thomson, the Chelsea goalkeeper in 1955
90,000 estimated weekly wage in pounds of Lampard
9,000 Mourinho’s Uefa fine, in pounds, for the Anders Frisk affair
20,000 Mourinho’s rise, in pounds per week, after reportedly agreeing a new £5.2 million per year contract
