The Price of Success

This is the story. Chelsea, the premiership champions and this season’s runaway leaders are away to the bottom Club in the league, Sunderland, who to date have won only 6 points. On the face of it, no contest. A team with no significant resources struggling for survival against a club backed by a Russian billionaire for whom money is no object.

After 12 minutes the underdogs grab a shock lead. It takes the favourites almost 15 minutes to scramble an equalizer and ultimately they are fortunate to secure what turns out to be the winner 20 minutes from the end of normal time. The situation is so precarious they substitute a centre back for a midfielder with 10 minutes to spare.

It is another step to the title for Charmless Chelsea and the title will once again represent a triumph of tedious dreary efficiency. Week in, week out. Nagging like toothache. And for those who love the beautiful game it is nothing less than a travesty. The ultimate justification of the distasteful pragmatism of a manager who is diminished by his stubborn insistence that ‘entertainment’ is not a word which is permitted in his football vocabulary.