Winning Ugly

You’re the Premiership Champions, a star-studded team assembled with the aid of a man for whom money is no object and orchestrated by a manager who describes himself as the ‘Special One’.

So how do you go about beating West Bromwich Albion, a modest outfit languishing near the foot of the league and desperate to avoid relegation to the Championship?

You play safe. Defend hard. Don’t worry about creating chances, they will come, and don’t even think about entertaining. If an opponent tackles you, look for a free kick, accentuate any physical contact, roll over several times and do ‘agony’. If a decision goes against you, pressurise the referee in numbers. Harangue, harass, intimidate. If one of your number is sent off, try to even things up.

Extend the half-time interval by several minutes. Keep the opposition, and the officials, waiting. Be arrogant. Be confident. Do what you have to do.

Naturally, it works. Chelsea won 2-0. And at the end of the game, apparently Mourinho’s 100th, the manager ceased his pumped up posturing and strode on to the pitch – a neat way of avoiding shaking hands with his opposite number, a decent man who by this time was almost incandescent with rage.

Fresh air has become foul. The team which demands respect, but feels no obligation to entertain, is widely despised and beyond its own fanbase there are in this country millions who will be praying for a Barcelona victory in the forthcoming Champions League fixture.

How ironic, at the end of a week in which Peter Osgood died so suddenly and tragically at the age of 59, because Osgood and his team were everything the present Chelsea team could be, and should be, but aren’t. Characters. Entertainers. Heroes.

They would have been embarrassed by this performance. And the only consolation for everyone at The Hawthorns is that the minute’s silence in tribute to the King of Stamford Bridge, deeply emotional and impeccably observed, provided the most honest and most memorable moment of the entire afternoon.

A point which was almost lost on the man who would be king.