Stop the Rot

FC Porto 2 - Chelsea 1.

There was a time when I would say that sentence in utter horror and incredulity.

Today I am saying it as if it were a forgone conclusion, and denying there was any hope before the game of a win. Whether I believed that or not is irrelevant, I need some morsel of comfort, so I’ll feed my ego and say I was right all along.

How this season has transpired is absolutely baffling.

I have always been a Chelsea supporter, but I have never had to endure anything like this.

When we were in the Europa League, that seemed a tragedy at the time. I was so used to getting the wins and battering opponents, that I greeted their win of that cup with a begrudging approval amidst grumbles of, “still not the Champions League…”

To criticize something that I love is usually difficult, but Chelsea are making it so easy for me that I can’t remember any positives from any of the games this season.

Porto were going to be our toughest opponents in the group, Mourinho warned, and they certainly came out to give Chelsea a bloody nose. They were quick, efficient, expressive, and aggressive for the entire 90 minutes.

They made Chelsea look like the weakest team the Blues could possibly have been, but as I say that somehow I feel the worst is still yet to come.

Everyone in blue looked desperate, disjointed, and absolutely shambolic. Nary a passing movement was completed, everyone was so sloppy against a Porto side constantly nipping at the heels.

At the end of last year’s campaign, John Terry credited the success to the fact that the team were a bunch of grafters (or “workhorses” for my friends who speak Americanese.)

Today, Porto were the real grafters. They worked hard, and worked smart. Chelsea haven’t been able to do one, the other, or both at all this year.

The pressure is mounting, the new claim of Mourinho doubting the abundance of “serial winners,” in the side has turned up the heat under the collars of the squad. And herein lies the heart of the issue.

Pressure makes diamonds from coal. But, if applied improperly, coal can just as easily crumble to dust.

Do you think Bayern Munich are biting their nails and swaying back and forth in a nervous heap before they savagely rip teams asunder 7-0? Do Luis Suarez and Neymar share a paper bag to breathe into before games where one of them is almost guaranteed a hat-trick?

The best footballers channel their pressure. They acknowledge it and put it to the side. They know it is inevitable, and when they check their bank balances they know it is worth it. They deal with the pressure and find comfort.

Chelsea need to be comfortable again, but that is the very thing they cannot afford.

Frantic play comes from frantic minds. The team are so concerned with not making mistakes, they are bypassing opportunities to take risks that could produce goals. The defensive line has lost the plot entirely, Zouma and Cahill just sit in positions, and assume everything will work itself out. No need to man mark. They’re in the box! What more could the gaffer want?

I don’t care if the next string of games are 0-0 draws, as long as I see something that resembles a team of players that have at least shaken hands before, if not spent three or four plus years working alongside one another.

It would almost be worth it to just forfeit this weekend’s game at Southampton, or let Rui Faria deploy youth academy players as Jose and the lads take a vacation together.

They need to get reacquainted. Laser-tag, go-karts, picnics, Xbox Tournaments, bingo night, pizza party at Dave’s, “Crap Footballers Anonymous” Meetings…

Anything to rebuild the team spirit.

Anything, but activities involving a football.