A first-half penalty rebound from Eden Hazard, the newly crowned PFA Player of the Year, confirmed the official end of 2014/15 English Premier League title race as the Blues clinched glory at home against mid-table Crystal Palace last Sunday with three games left to play. It is Chelsea’s first league title since the 2009/10 season and means Jose Mourinho has now won eight league titles in four different countries – an incredible adventure spanning 12 glorious years.
Chelsea’s title winning game was so typical – pragmatic but extremely effective. Let’s not forget that Mourinho sent on Mikel, Kurt Zouma and Filipe Luís — three defensive players – in the second half when he sensed Palace was planning to attack.
This sense of winning at any cost has led to some criticism, particularly from Chelsea’s two main competitors – with Arsene Wenger branding their football “boring” and Manuel Pellegrini labeling the Blues “a small club” with a defensive mentality.
But Mourinho doesn’t care about such opinions, especially in a season where Chelsea has displayed some great attacking football when needed. Only injuries and suspension of key players has hampered the entertaining side of the Blues, while no doubt their elimination from the Champions League has had an effect on Mourinho’s mentality as the League became his last major title this season.
We also note that Mourinho has used a small squad this year, rotating them less than other managers with only 22 players used in the league. Such tiredness was sure to impact their form during the League marathon and we witnessed signs of this over the winter, but this was also the period when Mourinho returned to his pragmatic football. Perhaps “smart” rather than “boring” would be a more accurate way to describe Mourinho this season given he has achieved the title he set out to win.
Chelsea will have two marquee signing in the summer, just like they produced so brilliantly 12 months ago with Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas. Strikers will rightly be excited to be linked with a move to West London and even greater days could well be to come to the West London club.