Chelsea breathed new life into their Premiership title hopes with an emphatic victory over Blackpool at Bloomfield Road on Monday night. Goals from skipper John Terry and a brace from Frank Lampard sealed a 3-1 victory over Ian Holloway’s men to leave the Blues just 9 points behind leaders Manchester United, with a crucial game in hand.
This time last week, Chelsea had virtually no chance of winning the title but two defeats in a week for United, including to Carlo Ancelotti’s men, has gotten Chelsea fans dreaming of a remarkable recovery.
While boss Ancelotti remains coy on any title talk and insists his focus is in securing a Champions League position, Chelsea must surely now be looking seriously at mounting a genuine bid for the Premiership title. If they win their game in hand, the gap will be reduced to just 6 points to play. Not only do they still have to travel to Old Trafford to face United, but their title rivals also face a testing trip to the Emirates Stadium to play Arsenal.
Despite their shocking mid-season form, it is also fair to say that nobody has been stronger or better than Chelsea this season. By that, I mean that neither United or Arsenal have hit the heights that Chelsea did at the beginning of the season when their fantastic form made them look almost certain to bring home the Premiership title. At the beginning of the season, it was certainly Chelsea football shirts which were proving most popular.
Make no bones about it, the Manchester United team which currently sits at the top of the table is not a strong team compared to recent years. While they have preserved an unbeaten record until their recent defeat by Wolves opened the floodgates, they had been stumbling their way through the season and had leaked an alarming amount of goals to lesser lights of the division such as Fulham, Blackpool and West Brom.
Similarly, there would be few who would bet on Arsenal having the mental belief that they can finally get over the final hurdle and go all the way to the end of the season, particularly after their Carling Cup capitulation against Birmingham.
Key to Chelsea’s success will be the form of Fernando Torres, who has made an indifferent start to his Stamford Bridge career. If Chelsea are to pull off the impossible, they are going to have to win virtually every game. To achieve this, Torres may prove a barrier. While the merits of an in-form Torres are undoubtable, he is hampering rather than benefiting the team at the moment and with no margin for error, this is a luxury Chelsea can ill afford. Such is the poor form since his £50m move from Liverpool that far from selling out the replica jerseys, cheap Chelsea shirts are being offered with Torres shirt printing.
It is still a bit of an ask for Chelsea to win the title but it is also not mission impossible and if the Blues believe in their ability to fight back and can recapture their early season form, they may just pull off one of the most remarkable comebacks in Premiership history.
Written by Colin Smith, a sports writer who blogs about retro football shirts.
