Chelsea Fan View: Too little, too late for Chelsea?

Chelsea completed an impressive 1-0 win on Sunday against Liverpool, the Champions’ League winners elect (if you believe everything you read).

In doing so, Chelsea claimed only their third win of the season against top six opposition and in spite of a disappointing mid-season, the last minute charge toward a top four finish appears to be on.

Chelsea is the form team at the moment with four consecutive wins in the league. This result leaves them tantalisingly close to Liverpool and Spurs, ahead of them in third and fourth respectively.

The chances of Chelsea finishing in the top four this season looked all over after the 1-1 draw against West Ham a few weeks ago. But now, if Liverpool draws or loses their last match to Brighton at home on Sunday or Tottenham lose one of their last two matches against Newcastle or Leicester and Chelsea win their matches against Huddersfield and Newcastle, Chelsea will be heading for Champions’ League football next season.

In all likelihood, Chelsea will still miss out albeit by a very tiny margin. But while the chance exists, Chelsea supporters interest in the season looks like it might just make it to the last day, something which looked very unlikely a few weeks ago.

How typically Chelsea to emerge from a somewhat miserable season filled with negativity to offer their supporters some hope at the final furlong. It’s what a good friend of mine, Mark Worrall, terms ‘glorious unpredictability’ in honour of Chelsea’s penchant for delivering the unexpected. The flip side of this of course is the well-used football aphorism “it’s the hope that kills you”. If that is the case then Chelsea supporters definitely have nine lives.

There were good performances all over the pitch for Chelsea on Sunday. Billed as a clash between two of the league’s best players it was Eden Hazard, Chelsea’s mercurial Belgian who looked more like the player to challenge Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo rather than Mo Salah who has been lauded as their heir apparent. In fact Salah looked more like the player who was shunted off to Roma after only 10 inauspicious starts in a blue shirt than the current Player of the Year.

His sole contribution was a pathetic dive attempting to win a free kick which he was rightly booked for and jeered by the Chelsea supporters. One supporter’s attempt to get a chant of “Chelsea reject” might have been stretching the point a bit too far.

Oliver Giroud staked his claim for a FA Cup final starting place with a headed goal that ended up being the difference between the two sides and N’Golo Kante was imperious throughout the match; buzzing around like a bee on steroids, intercepting, tracking back, setting up attacks and making last ditch tackles to keep his side in the game. For all of Hazard’s brilliance, there will be no justice if Kante does not pick up Chelsea’s Player of the Year award this season. He alone has put in 100% throughout the whole season.

The biggest surprise of the afternoon though was the performance of Tiemoue Bakayoko. His performances this season seemed to have mirrored Chelsea’s to a certain extent. His debut against Spurs at Wembley in the second match of the season was superb. Shortly afterward, like Chelsea he fell apart and seemed overawed and out of his depth in the most unforgiving league of all.

Against Liverpool on Sunday we saw the Bakayoko we all thought Chelsea had signed. Using his physical presence and height we saw him winning 50-50 challenges; intercepting and charging forward either leading or in support of the attack. For one of the few times this season, Chelsea’s midfield in a 3:5:2 actually looked balanced with Kante doing his thing, Bakayoko allowed Fabregas the freedom from defensive duties he needs. Chelsea bossed the midfield as a result and although under pressure for several spells in the match, Chelsea’s defensive back three coped admirably with a balanced and functioning midfield in front of them.

Chelsea looked far more like the cohesive unit we saw beating all and sundry last season and the victory and the manner of it was stamped with the tactical authority of Antonio Conte at his best. However, Chelsea may well yet miss out on the top four and the manager, club and the supporters will be left with that empty feeling of what might have been had we not fallen away so badly in mid-season.

Perhaps Antonio Conte might want to reflect on how he allowed the negativity to creep in to the side at that time. In hindsight it does appear to have been an error of judgement. He may also wonder what might have been if the Tiemoue Bakayoko we saw on Sunday had played like that all season. Perhaps things may have worked out very differently.

Of course football has always been full of ifs, buts and maybes, but they will seem all the more pertinent should Chelsea just miss out on the top four. If they do the manager and the players should be kicking themselves for chucking it in against the likes of Watford, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace. In the cold light of day those are the results that could well prove to be decisive.

But with the glow of a victory over the Champions’ League finalists fresh in the mind, I, like many other Chelsea supporters will allow the hope to kill me for at least another week.

David Chidgey @StamfordChidge

David Chidgey presents the award winning Chelsea FanCast podcast which can be heard live every Monday at 19.00 at mixlr.com/chelsea-fancast/ or downloaded from Acast, ITunes, Soundcloud or chelseafancast.com @ChelseaFanCast