Chelsea mix steel and snarl to claim title

It was perhaps appropriate that the team ground down by Chelsea to confirm a first league title in five years were Crystal Palace. Retreat to March 2014, that John Terry own-goal at Selhurst Park and a defeat which left Gary Cahill close to tears; Jose Mourinho had sat post-match in the rickety main stand and publicly doubted the personality of some in his squad.

There was a core upon whom he could rely but too many others were prone to “disappear”. He listed similar contests lost at Stoke and Newcastle, Everton and West Bromwich Albion, and scribbled down on a scrap of paper what his number lacked. It read simply “Balls”.

The team who claimed the Premier League at a sun-drenched Stamford Bridge yesterdayon Sunday, the blue streamers fluttering down on full-time as this corner of the capital erupted in joyous celebration, proclaim the qualities that side had so lacked.

They have a blend of steel and snarl, are streetwise and shrewd when they have to be and can bludgeon as often as they scintillate. They are far more of a Mourinho team than that which had wilted on occasion last season and no rival, for all the flurries of victories summoned in a game of catch-up, can match the relentless consistency - two league defeats in 35 games and a solitary one in cup competitions all campaign - this team have mustered.

Club, manager and owner up high in the West stand had good reason to reflect on the metamorphosis with pride as their project yielded reward. The trophy celebrated with such gusto here is the result of long-term planning.

“If we don’t [win the league] but show an evolution in the first season, show we’re moving in the right direction, we’ll be champions in the second season,” the returning manager had said at his inaugural press conference in June 2013. Those words seemed like typical Mourinho bluster at the time, though they have since been proved prophetic.

“Last season we were building something,” he said once Palace had been beaten. “This season there was work ethic, group ethic and a few players we brought here gave us qualities we didn’t have before.”

The manager’s blueprint was shaped by his experiences over the first half of last season as he gauged first-hand, occasionally with dismay, the Europa League-winning team he had inherited. Allied to Mourinho’s tactical tweaks, this club’s has been a calculated strategy, forged on efficient, ruthless recruitment within the restrictive nature of financial fair play, generating funds through sales in order to secure the spine required to sustain a proper challenge.

The willingness to re-sign Nemanja Matic from Benfica in the January of 2014, despite the GBP21m fee effectively serving as an admission the Serb had been sold for a pittance to the Portuguese, was bold. The same could be said for the sale of the two-times player of the year, Juan Mata, that month and the fans' favourite David Luiz last summer. The fees may have been eye-catching but both departures - unlike those of the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Kevin de Bruyne - were surprising. Hindsight shines a kinder light on those decisions, particularly in the context of the replacements.

While others have dawdled or haggled, Chelsea's transfer business has been decisive. Mourinho's principal gripe last term was up front where Fernando Torres and the stop-gaps, Samuel Eto'o and Demba Ba, were blunt. Diego Costa, a player who had come close to joining Liverpool from Atletico Madrid the previous year and whose agent, Jorge Mendes, boasts Mourinho as another of his clients, was identified early.

Mourinho had met Cesc Fabregas in person, missing his son’s final youth-team game of the season for Fulham, to convince the Spaniard to return to London. He has been the conveyor-belt of assists, the creative hub in central midfield. For roughly the same fee as that which saw Lukaku depart, and even with his slight dip in form over recent months, his arrival was a masterstroke.

Guardian Service