What happened to the beast?
As a contributor who always saw beauty in the so-called beast of last season’s Chelsea, I’m enjoying the beauty in the new so-called beautiful Chelsea. But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of our beastly nature, not if we are going to win the Champions League this year. Which the signs indicate is our priority this season.
And aren’t we looking beautiful. Two games in and it’s all wingers, twin strikers and a two-man central midfield. The ball goes to feet, one-two, in behind, quick, precise and players move, dragging defenders around, running into space. And Jose Mourinho looks beautiful. Better haircut (always a clear sign of a man’s inner state of mind) to start the season. Last year’s crop was too hard. It looked mean. Like the teams he put out. Now he’s got it at that perfect length, not too short, not too floppy. And he’s sounding relaxed. Most of his new signings have already impacted: Claudio Pizarro, Florent Malouda and Tal Ben Haim have been great. Steve Sidwell’s not been a disaster and Shaun Wright-Phillips is like a new £21m player, crucial to the new beautiful style. Alex and Daniel Alves will join a buoyant team, barring a repeat of last year’s disaster at Anfield on Sunday. An unlikely prospect. We’ll be too good for that bunch of pretenders.
Commentators have a new Chelsea narrative. Already we’re the new open-style team. We’re more beautiful. The fans are making more noise at home. Everyone’s beautiful and relaxed. Even Roman Abramovich is relaxed. He’s friends with Mourinho again. Peter Kenyon’s relaxed. He simply says we have to win the Champions League a couple of times (to add to our couple of Premier League titles), to establish ourselves as a global brand, and smiles when he says it. So do I detect a theme? A shift in perspective underlying the change of mood? Do the high command care that much about another muck and bullets campaign to win the Premier League at all costs, especially at the cost of the trophy they need to win most?
Personally I think Abramovich and Kenyon would sacrifice the domestic league for what, in business terms, is the big one. And I think Mourinho may have just come on board. It does look like a case of, Let’s have some fun in the league this year. Let’s build our image. Let’s win hearts and minds. Let’s be beautiful. Attack, play prettier and see what we can achieve. Of course, we’ll rely on our team spirit (much in evidence in the second half at Reading) and our never surrender attitude - what else can we do with John Terry as skipper? But this year and next we really, really would like to win the other one.
In which case, be prepared for lots of fun in the Premier League and the continuation of the beautiful style for a while yet. But expect the beast to return when it’s needed in those difficult Continental fixtures that lie ahead.
- Posted at 10:33 AM · Permalink · Print · 2015 views · Last indexed by Google on the 14th May 2008
- Tags: Alex, Champions League, Chelsea, Claudio Pizarro, Daniel Alves, Florent Malouda, Jose Mourinho, Peter Kenyon, Premier League, Roman Abramovich, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Steve Sidwell
Nice blog Danny, perhaps the priorities have changed and indeed the Champions League is the main thing. But on a personal level I hope not, I still feel that Premiership is the main one to win, and until we’ve been as consistent as Liverpool were, and United recently, we can’t be classed as one of the greatest teams of the era.
Don’t get me wrong I would love us to win old “Big Ears” and do it a few times in the coming years, but.. it’s still a cup competition which can be won on a penalty shootout (which we’re not too good at) so not really a decisive benchmark on how great a team is. But as you mentioned perhaps for marketing us as a “Global Brand” it’s seen as a must.
I think we should take the approach as we’ve done in previous seasons and go out and try and win every competition we’re in.
Foolish perhaps some of you may think, but how exciting was last season in the final weeks when…. well, what could have been!
I know I enjoyed it even though my nerves were frayed to the edge, and long may my mental health suffer every May.
Intersting blog,
I’d forgotten TSO got everyone’s heads shaved for pre season last year. That was militant!
I’d like to see the final ball from SWP to improve but other then that he’s on top form so far. And i hope we win the Champs this year and the Prem, if i had to decide of the the two, i’d go Prem this year to prove we can and Champs the next. Hopefully we’ll just win the lot this year.
As for the gobal branding and such, i couldn’t care less, i just want us to win and Jose to be TSO.
I think your right though on all the points made Danny.
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Very good post, although I’m not sure JM would ever be prepared to totally sacrifice style for results. But United showed last season you could do both, which I think JM had forgotten, and that might have done us a favour.
Also, and I’m not sure if this counts as beastly or not, but it cannot be said often enough that Rafa Benitez’s face now looks like a vagina.
What’s a Vagina Peter? is there another word you could use? so us simple football folk understand.
Good article Danny. Think we’re far better placed to play a more attractive style of football this season. With plenty of cover (boosted further by the addition of Alves, hopefully) our ability to be flexible within games and over the course of the season has increased dramatically. We definitely lacked this last season, but did extraordinarily well considering. Don’t doubt we’ll do ‘ugly’ when the need arises, but great teams do.
On the subject, just reading ‘Fields of Glory, Paths of Gold’ (The History of European Football) which chronicles the some of the great attacking sides -Puskas’s Real Madrid, Cruyff’s Ajax and so forth; the history you hear regularly is obviously of the goalscoring exploits, but there were any number of key games where an ugly shut-out was necessary, especially in the away legs of the old 2-legged tie system. Everyone does it…
Re ‘that’ beard. Full credit to the Liverpool player (I’m guessing Carragher) who named Benitez “Max” (of Peter Kay’s Max & Paddy) when the goatee appeared. Striking resemblance, it has to be said.
Clive
How about ‘His face now looks like a Hunt’.
Re: Sunday, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if we lost at Anfield, where pretty football will be at a premium, but still think we’ll finish above Liverpool.
In many ways, the Blackburn-Arsenal game is the most interesting. If the Arse get a result it might be time to start taking them seriously again…
Good one out there Danny…more of the same.
Atractive football…well why not…at least it gives the Newspaper guys a headache on the “Chelsea Machine” concept…
Liverpool would be a good one.
I think maybe the clear-the-air session that Jose and Roman was a chance for all of them to have a re-focus, it’s been three years now, and the landscape has changed a bit, but according to the legend Roman’s desire to be involved began with watching an epic champions league encounter so I think that would still be top of his agenda. While Peter Kenyon is obviously keen for the ‘brand’ to be more appealing, I think there must have been a general consensus that ’sexy’ football is also desirable if not for any other reason than value for money. The notion of football as entertainment in the digital age, and football as a successful business venture, has meant marketing and a lot of media hype, but at the end of the day, people want to watch exciting matches (and preferably win) rather than chess games, I enjoyed the FA Cup Final but the Birmingham match was more in the realm of pure entertainment. I was pretty apprehensive at the end of last season with all the various speculation but I’m glad Jose is still here, I think he and the rest of the club want to build a dynasty, and that means like all teams that have had a ‘golden’ age or period when they won trophies, they just want to win everything, but old
big ears is becoming a holy grail, so I agree a lot of concentration will go into that this season. I remember Valencia away last year and think it’s just a matter of time, but believe it will happen before Jose finally leaves us, be nice if it was the next one in Moscow,
give Roman some satisfaction I bet.
In the terms of the squad it has more depth than last year, and look what was achieved then, Robben’s first year he was on fire but since then he seems less hungry and a bit petulant and he wasn’t a regular last year, so if he goes to Madrid I think we have adequate cover. The last piece of the jig-saw is Alves, right back has become like left back was a couple of years ago, so I hope both transfers go through. Great to see SWP coming good though, and maybe Sidwell will blossom under Jose’s wing, just a bit worried at not seeing much of Joe Cole the last few matches, but trust TSO.
Beautiful indeed! And I think the lads looked great (and flashy!) in those electricity yellow kits as seen in the Reading match! :-)
Great blog Danny….. There has definately been a shift to moving the ball more quickly out of defence this season, and I hope we don’t return to the menotinous sideways passing when JT comes back into the side at the weekend. JT’s great strength is to control the game from the back and we may see a more controlled approach with him back.
However, as much as the football has been great so far, I for one would be happy with ‘Shit on a Stick’ and 3 points on Sunday!
Very interesting post, thanks.
I also always though that the consensus about us being “boring”/”pragmatic” was off the mark. People seem to talk now as if José’s “natural” approach is dull, defensive football. This is surely nonsense. Like any good manager, José tries to figure out the best way to win games with the available personnel. People seem to have forgotten the way we played in the first championship-winning season, with Duff and Robben steaming down the wings. In fact there’s an ineteresting example of how the myth of a “pragmatic”/”defensive” Chelsea has taken hold in the latest edition of the Guardian’s podcast [I'd link it if I knew how to]. This is usually an excellent broadcast, pretty fair-minded and thoughtful as well as scoring on entertaining cheap gags, but in the latest edition someone says that maybe the reason we are playing more aggressively and fluently at the moment is because Makalele is no longer automatic first-choice! — the implication being that because Maka is the epitome of the defensive midfielder, his absence makes us less “defensive”. This is clearly nonsense: anyone who has watched Chelsea regularly knows that Maka’s brilliance is his ability to control posession in tight spaces and turn defence into attack by moving the ball forward to the man in space (he was our best player in the second championship season, really, wasn’t he?). But because people are so convinced that Chelsea are a naturally “defensive” team, they misinterpret our midfield to suit the myth.
I think the reason we weren’t so exciting to watch last season was simply to do with two things: Drogba’s incredible form, and injuries/loss of form to out attacking midfielders. Frank wasn’t his usual self for a lot of games in the second half; Essien had to play in defence most of the time because of the injuries; Ballack clearly hadn’t adapted to Premiership pace; Joe was injured; Robben was injured; SWP was, ermm, not very good. But Drogs was in such incredible form that it made sense to lump the ball up to him and hope for the best. I don’t think it had anything to do with this nonsense about us being “naturally” a boring, route one team. What we’re seeing so far this season is simply the best way of using the available players — same as last year.
I mean, think about it. If you were a manager, would you sit around and say to yourself, “Hmm, this season I will play exciting football/boring football/ whatever”? Wouldn’t you say, “What’s the best way for my team to try and win games?”
Anyway.
I’m not sure we’ll beat Liverpool either: they seem to have a bee in their bonnet about us and they tend to raise their game. But I totally agree that man for man we are a much better team than they are.
Not sure you can actually make Big Ears a priority, though. As Liverpool demonstrated three years ago, there’s a lot of luck involved in that competition. Quite rarely does the best team in Europe actually win it, as far as I can see. I reckon we have about as good a chance as any of the other top teams, which isn’t saying much. Whereas the best team in England always wins the Premiership, by definition.
I’ll take the league any day as the Champions League is largely a crapshoot. Do any of us believe Milan were really the best in Europe last year? Give me the league, global brand be damned.
Great points though, Danny. I dare to dream: wouldn’t it be wonderful to win the league while playing such wonderful football?
I’m still a little puzzled by all the interest in Alves. The boy is wonderful, one need only look at his goal from the Copa America final to know that 100%. But I wonder if he’s the right solution at right back because, in the few times I’ve seen him play, he seems like a world class Glen Johnson. Brilliant going forward, not much to talk about in defense. We already have a left back who is defensively “absent-minded” at times, I wonder if we need that on the right too.
That said, it’d be brilliant to have he and Ashley patrolling the wings if we revert to the diamond in Europe…
Finally, ran across this on youtube today and couldn’t help but share:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRDzfF4Esc
It’s all being pretty in the football and the haircuts. Is that what you really care about about? Harumph. Fine while we’re winning. Let’s sort out the football first.
Well all this stopped at the weekend.
Including the commentary. Sky Sports was back to being biased. Even the missus, who dislikes Chelsea, said something about Sky Sports disliking Chelsea.