Jose Mourinho
has tried it all. He has criticised his players and questioned their attitude.
He has then back pedalled and killed them with kindness, defending them after
defeats. He has dropped some players and left others back in London when the
team was in Portugal.
On Saturday,
he went for restoring club captain John Terry to the line-up, to no avail; he
was hopelessly exposed again. Then he brought on Nemanjic Matic at half time
and took him off again after 28 minutes. Humiliated, Matic wasn’t even offered
a handshake from his manager.
But it
doesn’t really matter what he tries, what trick he tries to pull. None of them
are working at present. Chelsea are abysmal. They have lost four times in the
Premier League this season, won just twice and conceded 17 goals. Last season
they lost three, and conceded 32 all season. This is not so much a title
defence as a humiliating abdication before the autumn leaves have stated to
fall.
Yesterday the
crowd even booed his substitutions at Stamford Bridge, especially that of
Matic. It seems they weren’t buying the gesture politics. Defensive solutions
would be more appropriate but one of the great coaches of his generation can
find none at present.
At which point
you begin to question whether these players want to dig their manager out of
this hole. It seems extraordinary to suggest as much when but five months ago
they were parading down the Fulham Road with the Premier League title. Yet they
play as if they are unconcerned at the growing crisis enveloping Stamford
Bridge.
What made it
all the more bizarre was that the evening had started well for Chelsea. The
lethargy of the Porto performance was initially replaced by an energetic
intensity. Notably Oscar, left at home in midweek, and Hazard, dropped in
Oporto, were insatiable in their appetite to close down Southampton players and
get on the ball themselves. It was much more like the Chelsea of last season;
even more so when Willian opened the scoring on ten minutes.
In fact, it
was rather like the Chelsea of last week, the Brazilian repeating his trick of
curling in the ball from a lengthy free kick thirty yards out. What looked like
a magnificent cross had sufficient spin on it to curl and curl on t the post
and in the net past the despairing out-stretched arm of Stekelenburg. It was
rather magnificent; being Brazilian, the odds were he meant it.
Chelsea
seemed much more at ease with the world. When Fabregas and Oscar exchanged
crisp passes inside the box and the Brazilian struck a shot goal-wards which
Maarten Stekelenburg grasped out of the air, it seemed as though some of the
joie de vivre of the title-winning might be returning.
It didn’t
last. Chelsea can’t deliver over 45 minutes at present, let alone 90. Slowly
Southampton eased themselves back into the game and Sadio Mane began to torment
in the manner in which Porto’s players had in midweek.
It was to
referee’s Robert Madley’s discredit that he didn’t award the excellent
Senegalese a penalty on 30 minutes when clumsy Ramires felled him. It was to
his shame that he booked him a minute later, when Ivanovic felled him and he
was deemed to have dived.
Like most of
Ivanovic’s opponents this season he was simply much too quick for the Serbian.
The diving directive is all well and good in theory; in practice it is almost
impossible to police with the naked eye.
Victor
Wanyama then tested Begovic with a swirling cross which threatened to drop in
under the cross bar. By now Chelsea had conceded the initiative and would never
recover it.
They dropped
deep and failed to compete as they had in the opening quarter of the game. So
little surprise when Jose Fonte lofted a long ball which Graziano Pelle chested
down quite superbly into the path of Steven Davis. The quality of his half
volley matched the assist; Begovic barely saw it.
Having
conceded, Chelsea could not re-adjust to their previous superiority. Mane by
now was thoroughly enjoying himself, his pace and movement pulling Chelsea one
way and another. Begovic denied him sliding in on 48 minutes and Ivanovic
blocked him as the ball rebounded. Ward-Prowse then struck wide from the
corner.
Chelsea felt
aggrieved when Fabregas’ lovely through ball saw Falcao felled by Stekelenburg
– the Colombian stated his fall a fraction top early and received a yellow card
instead of the penalty he might have won had he not been so eager to fall into
the challenge.
Yet, the
pattern of the game was emerging. Chelsea were struggling, Mane was in the
ascendancy. So when on the hour, when Pelle was allowed by Gary Cahill to play
in a dangerous looking ball, which Terry completely misjudged with his sliding
interception and Mane found himself clear on goal, the result was inevitable,.
The Senegalese cooly dispatched the finish and then proceeded to celebrate in
ecstatic fashion in front of the Southampton fans.
Mane then was
fouled by Falcao, the Colombian fortunate not to attract a second yellow. And
on 70 minutes, came the denouement. Hazard gave the ball away in midfield and
Mane sprinted away, through the Chelsea defence and released Pelle wide on his
right.
The Italian
looked up, shot and finished superbly from just inside the box. Chelsea had
been well beaten again. More worrying, they look wholly incapable of halting
their decline.
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