ANALYSIS: The Blues have begun the season in rampant form and have already emerged from an away trip to Manchester City without defeat - but how long can they keep it up? FOLLOW US ON TWITTER @6326david
The surest measure of greatness is the shadow it casts. A decade on, the Arsenal 'Invincibles' side of 2003-04 are still regarded with a unique reverence.
Others hold the records for most points won and most goals scored in a Premier League season, but it is Arsene Wenger’s greatest team, inhabiting a page all of their own in the annals of English football history after emerging unbeaten from a 38-game campaign, who remain the yardstick for any side hoping to earn lofty position within the pantheon of the greats.
Many have won the Premier League title since without ever threatening to match the Gunners’ remarkable feat. Some have gone further down the path than others but all have faltered well before the finish line and, with every failure, the question resounds ever louder: Will it ever be done again?
"It's something that happened once in a lifetime," Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho told reporters earlier in October when asked whether his team are capable. "I don't see, in modern football with the competitiveness of this Premier League, one team being champion without a defeat."
Mourinho is often disingenuous with the media but, given the fact that he never usually passes up a chance to upstage or humiliate Wenger, there is no reason to assume that he was anything other than serious in his answer.
Even after comfortably holding off Arsenal on Saturday to make it six wins and a draw from seven matches, Chelsea still have 31 games left to navigate. Top of the priority list is winning the Premier League for the first time since 2010, closely followed by the prospect of Mourinho’s third Champions League triumph.
For football’s arch-pragmatist, remaining unbeaten is a means and not an end. Trophies are the most certain guarantee of a place in history and both Chelsea and their manager remain intent on swelling their collections.
Not that it is impossible, of course. This Chelsea side have at least as much in their favour as any Premier League leader over the past 10 years: the form striker in world football, a midfield bursting with power and creativity, a settled defence which can still improve, two world-class goalkeepers and formidable depth in most positions.
They have also already returned from the home of the champions with a deserved point and avenged one of last season’s six defeats at Goodison Park in emphatic style. Saturday’s trip to Crystal Palace offers a similar opportunity.
Mourinho, however, has been here before. In 2004-05 his Chelsea side won six and drew two of their opening eight matches on the way to winning a first league title in 50 years with a record points total but then saw their record blemished by a pre-Sheikh Mansour City on this day 10 years ago.
The following season, the Blues opened their title defence with nine straight victories but tasted defeat to Manchester United in the first week of November. Four of Chelsea’s next six Premier League matches are away from home – including trips to Old Trafford and Anfield – with Champions League and League Cup commitments sandwiched in between. If Mourinho can make it to December with that zero still in the loss column, the possibility may finally cross his mind.
Fighting on numerous fronts will require intelligent juggling of resources. Mourinho has so far avoided shuffling his pack too much, starting nine players in every one of Chelsea’s first seven Premier League matches: Thibaut Courtois, Branislav Ivanovic, Gary Cahill, John Terry, Cesar Azpilicueta, Nemanja Matic, Cesc Fabregas, Eden Hazard and Diego Costa.
In their unbeaten season, Arsenal boasted 13 players who made at least 25 league appearances and seven who made at least 30 starts: Jens Lehmann, Lauren, Kolo Toure, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry.
This unchanging spine – midfield duo Patrick Vieira and Gilberto Silva also made 29 starts – clearly enhanced the consistency of Wenger’s side in the Premier League, though it might well have contributed to the Gunners falling narrowly short at the business end of the cup competitions. Given his keen desire to win the Champions League again, Mourinho may have some tough selection decisions to make as the fixtures begin to stack up.
But perhaps the most crucial factor of all is the form and fitness of Costa. Mourinho is already managing the Brazil-born Spain international delicately amid fears that he could suffer a recurrence of the hamstring problems which derailed his astonishing breakthrough season with Atletico Madrid. If Chelsea are to have any hope of going through the Premier League season unbeaten, they need to keep Costa on the pitch and firing.
Henry scored 30 goals in 37 Premier League starts for the 'Invincibles' and actually upped his game in the second half of the campaign, netting 18 in Arsenal’s final 19 matches. Costa began last term in even better form, scoring 19 in his first 19 Primera Division games, but fatigue and injury limited him to just eight in 16 in the second half of the season. Chelsea can ill afford the same to happen again.
Mourinho's men have, at least, made things relatively easy for themselves so far. They have assumed a winning lead inside the first 30 minutes in four of their six victories and surged decisively ahead around the hour mark in the other two. Wenger’s 'Invincibles' were also smart with their goals, scoring 30 of their season’s tally of 73 – 42 per cent – in the first 15 minutes of each half, and leading their opponents at half-time on 16 occasions.
Facing their fiercest rivals will not faze this Chelsea side either. Mourinho is unbeaten in eight matches against the other members of the Premier League’s top four – winning seven and drawing one – since returning to Stamford Bridge and remains a master of the pitched tactical battle.
Yet in reality it could well be the likes of Palace, Aston Villa and Sunderland – all conquerors of Chelsea last season – who pose a greater threat to any hopes of a prolonged unbeaten record. United made it 24 matches into the 2010-11 campaign without tasting defeat before losing 2-1 to a Wolves side who went on to narrowly avoid relegation.
Arsenal’s most impressive achievement in the 'Invincibles' season was ensuring that sub-par performances and points dropped merely constituted draws – 12 of them, in fact, including five in their last nine matches.
Over the course of a 10-month campaign, preserving an unbeaten record is as much a test of the mind as the body, with both fortune and complacency at work. Chelsea will have to keep both firmly in check if they are to have any hope of reaching beyond silverware for the even greater prize of footballing immortality.
Source : Goal.com
Posts
0 Comments