Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho says Diego Costa and Loic Remy are expected to miss their match against Manchester United.
If you were looking for reasons Chelsea won’t win the title, their midweek clash with Maribor was not a good place to start the search. It wasn’t the scoreline that should chill the rest of the Premier League, it was the manner in which it was secured.
Chelsea aren’t just a good team, they’re a driven team. They are fully committed, utterly professional and they have very few weaknesses. Manchester United supporters should be rather concerned ahead of this weekend’s big game.
Maribor, of course, are hardly European royalty. But they reached the Champions League group stages the hard way, their Slovenian title proving no passport to UEFA’s cash trough. They had also already held Schalke and Sporting Lisbon before their trip to London. No one else had bested them until they played Chelsea.
But it was in the closing stages when you could see what Jose Mourinho has achieved in little over a year, the spirit that he has cultivated.
Chelsea were five goals up and could easily have clocked off and chatted among themselves for the last 10 minutes. Instead, they defended as if the lead was slender. When Maribor attacked, they blocked with astonishing resolve, still hurling themselves in front of goal-bound shots, still chasing down their opponents. They didn’t just want a win; they wanted a perfect performance.
Chelsea were ruthless against Maribor and have a confident look similar to Jose Mourinho’s early years at the club.
This was the mark of Mourinho’s first Chelsea side, a will to win that powered them through long campaigns. It was a state of mind that lingered in the dressing room even after Mourinho’s departure in 2007, an inertia that nearly propelled them to more silverware under Avram Grant.
Well-funded teams of millionaire superstars can always be brought down by lesser players who simply want it more. The problem during Mourinho’s first two seasons at Stamford Bridge was that no one wanted it more than Chelsea. There are signs of that hunger in this team too. He has eradicated the personalities he felt were too weak to be trusted and he has replaced them with minds he considers to be stronger.
Louis van Gaal, assuming he was watching, will have noted that this wasn’t even Chelsea’s strongest side. Mourinho, fibbing again to the media, had insisted that he would not rest players. Nevertheless, Petr Cech, Kurt Zouma and Filipe Luis, with three league substitute appearances between them all season, were all selected to start. The scale of the victory meant that Cesc Fabregas and Oscar could be brought off early to spare their legs. Chelsea are in excellent shape.
All of this has been brought about by liberal application of an attribute that has been a stranger to Stamford Bridge for many years: common sense. Chelsea’s books are as balanced as their squad. It was no secret that Mourinho was unhappy with his strikers last season, so he dumped all of them and started again, paying big money for Diego Costa, one of the best in Europe, and then bringing in an ageing club legend and a proven marksman in Didier Drogba and Loic Remy.
Despite a relationship that dates back several years, Jose Mourinho isn’t going to give Louis van Gaal’s Manchester United a break.
He knew that Frank Lampard’s legs were weakening, so he paid a sizeable sum for another creative, goal-scoring midfielder, Cesc Fabregas, the perfect man to complement his winter signing, Nemanja Matic.
The defence, which shipped only 27 goals in the league last season, needed only a minor tweak. Filipe Luis in for Ashley Cole. And then there was the difficult but vindicated decision to promote Thibaut Courtois.
It has been a flawless rebuilding job, and it has been almost entirely self-financed by player sales. Compare and contrast with United’s failure to replace Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand, even though it was clear for months that they were both on their way out. Compare and contrast with Arsenal’s failure to reinforce a lightweight back line. It’s not rocket science, it’s just common sense.
It’s not all bad news for United. It has been reported that Costa’s problems are not limited to his hamstrings and that he may have been suffering from a severe stomach bug. Remy was withdrawn immediately after opening the scoring on Tuesday, apparently with a groin injury. Age has wearied Drogba, and academy prospect Dominic Solanke has never played in the Premier League. It could be that Andre Schurrle, himself recovering from injury, is deployed to lead the line.
But Chelsea performed reasonably enough without a top-class striker last season. And Mourinho will have watched United, too. He will have seen the way their full-backs attack the ball beyond the halfway line, leaving space behind them. He may worry about the creativity of Angel Di Maria; he will certainly be respectful of the threat posed by Radamel Falcao, but he will not fear United, nor should he.
We have become accustomed to close encounters between these two clubs over the years. This weekend may be a little more distant.