Whether Chelsea wins the Premier League or not, England will have another flawed champion
Chelsea has lost two of its last four Premier League games. Yet Chelsea will probably still win the title.
For all sorts of reasons to do with the fact that even though Antonio Conte’s Blues have let their lead over Tottenham Hotspur – who have won seven games in a row – wither from 10 points, it’s still very hard to make up the four remaining ones with six games left in the season.
And because the toughest of those games for Chelsea is away at Everton, whereas Spurs still have to play Arsenal, United and the resurgent champions Leicester City. And because Chelsea has no European campaign to distract it. And because Spurs have a 56-year history of blowing this sort of thing – their second and last league title came in 1961.
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So while Sunday’s 2-0 away loss to Manchester United was painful, especially for the vindication it brought the smug former Chelsea and current United manager Jose Mourinho, chances are it won’t change anything.
For a second year in a row and a third season in four, the Premier League will crown a somewhat unconvincing champion.
The usually fiery Conte was downcast after the loss for which he took the blame, and in which his side had been outgunned and outplayed by his predecessor Mourinho, who has a little specialness left in him yet. The Italian shifted the burden of winning the league onto Spurs, who have, in the last decade, only done two things reliably: play pretty soccer and fade in the final games of the year.
“I think Tottenham are now the best team,” Conte said.
Mind games aimed at the title rivals? A challenge to his own players? An attempt to ease the pressure that comes from leading the league since early November, without a significant challenger until now?
Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Chelsea will probably win the league not because it dazzled and destroyed, but because it was spared in its effectiveness. Chelsea is less inefficient than the others, and that’s what will likely allow the Londoners to prevail at the end of the road.
Just as Leicester City, with all its luck-fueled counter-attacking 1-0 wins, was the least bad team last year. And the way Manchester City nabbed the title from Liverpool in 2014, after the Reds stumbled at the last hurdles.
The last truly strong champion was Chelsea. Under Mourinho, two years ago.
Because consider Chelsea’s ledger this season against the five other members of what we can fairly call the Big Six – the Manchesters United and City, Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool. The Blues lost 3-0 to Arsenal in September. Eight days after they lost 2-1 to Liverpool. They lost to Tottenham at the start of January and drew with Liverpool at the end of it. Now they’ve lost to United.
In all, they went 3-4-1 (W-L-T) against the rest of the top six.
If you took an aggregate score – not that that’s a thing in the league, of course, but it’s a way to measure the balance of power in head-to-head matches nonetheless – Chelsea lost the league series to Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs. Conte’s side only beat Manchester City on both occasions. And prevailed over United by virtue of the 4-0 drubbing at Stamford Bridge in October.
That isn’t much of a résumé for a champion.
Certainly, there was a 13-game unbeaten run in there and that was impressive, but that streak followed three straight winless games and was followed by a stretch of just three wins from six.
If Chelsea holds on, it’s because it was ruthlessly efficient in the rest of its games – underscoring once again that if you’re fairly clean with your points against the smaller teams, you can afford to split the games with the big ones and still compete. Because in its other 26 games, Chelsea has spilled just seven points. Out of a possible 78.
Chelsea won’t have won the title with its double over City but its doubles over Bournemouth and Hull City and Leicester and Stoke City and West Ham United. The rest of the season promises as many as six more doubles.
Just as Leicester won the Premier League in spite of tying an enormous 13 games and recording the lowest goal difference – plus-32 – of any champion since Manchester United won the league by the same margin in 1996-97. Leicester lifted the trophy not because of emphatic wins, but because its three losses were half as many as anybody else’s.
Just as City won the league in 2014 because Liverpool lost at Chelsea in its 36th game and gave up three late goals to Crystal Palace in its 37th.
Chelsea will be champion because Tottenham, Liverpool, City, United and Arsenal were more profligate in their games against the lesser lights. And if Chelsea isn’t champion, Spurs will be champion because Chelsea choked.
Either way, the winner’s won’t have been some glorious march to silverware. The winner will have been the steadiest team, even if it lost a majority of the big games.
Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.
