Charmless Chelsea

After Chelsea’s recent 2-0 victory at The Valley, Martin Samuel, one of our most respected sports journalists, wrote:

“It was bloody, brutal, and, it must be said, rather charmless. Chelsea are to
be admired much like a cruelly efficient assassin. The job is difficult, their
professionalism is faultless but the end result is still unpalatable for those
who like a little romance.”

Glance at the table and you’ll see how well it works. Coldly, calculatingly, they get results, and they do it so well that some people suspect that the destiny of the Premiership trophy is already a foregone conclusion.

Significantly, their most effective players are those whose greatest contribution is to the defensive side of the game – the wonderful Petr Cech, the inspirational John Terry and Claude Makele, arguably the best in the world at protecting the back four. You have to respect them but, Chelsea fans apart, it is, in Samuel’s apt phrase “hard to warm to them”.

Their manager has explained why in the clearest possible terms. Asked whether he felt Chelsea had an obligation to entertain, he said that he understood the word but that it did not feature in his football vocabulary.

Roman Abramovic must be really proud of him.