The only winner after Chelsea and Manchester City sluggedout a grim and goalless game was the leading team in the English title race,Manchester United.
Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium was a desolate place. Thehome crowd booed the new team coach, Rafael Benitez, in the pouring rainSunday. It sang for Roberto Di Matteo, the man fired to make way for Benitez.
The paymaster up in the stand, the owner of everythingChelsea has, Roman Abramovich, sat with that familiar, remote half smile on hisface that nobody can quite interpret.
The sport, such as it was, became deadlocked in negativity.Two heavyweight sides, each costing a billion dollars to assemble, appearedfrom the first minute to last to hold onto what they had at the start “ asingle point each. There was no thirst for victory, and its three points.
In many respects, this is no longer an English sport.Chelsea is wholly owned by the Russian, Abramovich. He does what he wants withhis money. City is bankrolled from Abu Dhabi, and the sheikh who pays the billsis never seen in Britain.
The players, too, are almost exclusively foreign. Chelsealined up with seven nationalities in its blue jerseys “ only one of them,Ashley Cole, is British. City played a team of eight nationalities, with threeEnglishmen on the field.
In many ways, this is positive. The Premier League is now aworld league. It sells to television broadcasters around the globe, and theskill factor is immeasurably better than it was a decade ago. The inescapablefact is that England does not develop skills on a par with those of theSpaniards, the South Americans or even these days the Belgians who migrate toCity, Chelsea and United because they pay the best and because they might, asChelsea did in May, win the Champions League.
There lies the cause of the dismay around Stamford Bridgestadium on Sunday. Six months ago in Munich, Abramovich had given Di Matteo abear hug and a big grin after the coach oversaw Chelsea’s capture of the “Cupwith the Big Ears,” the Champions League trophy.
Di Matteo, a well-liked former Chelsea player, had rescuedthe season after players had lost their unity over the team’s previous coach,Abramovich’s eighth in a decade, Andre Villas-Boas.
Chelsea won last season what Barca lost, the Championstrophy. But it won it with obduracy and never-say-die defense. Abramovich is right to want more, to hankerfor entertainment, especially as he has paid the money to buy all the talentsat his team’s behest.
The immediate test is for Benitez to get out of FernandoTorres the goals that he seemed to score every other week at Liverpool, whereBenitez once was coach. The statistics are damning on that front.
At Liverpool, Torres scored 56 goals in 79 Premier Leaguematches. At Chelsea, he has scored 19 goals in 88 appearances, and just one inhis last nine.
Torres appears to be trying. But, as happened Sunday, he isisolated in this Chelsea team. He has visibly lost his greatest asset, thesearing speed that would take him beyond the best of defenders. In truth, hehas not had that since injuries beset him two and a half years ago.
If that is not coming back, then who at Chelsea other thanits owner is responsible for spending millions of pounds on a busted flush? Theturnover of coaches is such that it cannot be the fault of any of the threerecently fired men, Carlo Ancelotti, Villas-Boas and now Di Matteo.
