Not always beautiful, but still worthy: Chelsea and Mourinho are deserving Premier League champions

“The best sides are able to win games in different ways and Chelsea illustrated that tonight,” Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson said after Chelsea came from behind to beat his team 3-1 last weekend. Now, after beating Crystal Palace 1-0 this past weekend, Chelsea are champions. And despite the ‘boring’ tag attached to Jose Mourinho’s side, they were clearly the best team in the Premier League this season. That boring tag might also be overblown too. Sport lends itself to short memories. There is a tendency to look only at the latest trends - Robin van Persie is a bad striker, David Moyes is a bad manager and so on. Similarly, Chelsea are boring. But Chelsea were anything but boring for most of the season, some of their goals were direct and dazzling; their passing incisive and creative; their defending robust and brave. They are deserving champions of England. [caption id=“attachment_2221256” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Against the top sides, Mourinho urges his team to contain and convert — not press and pour forward. Getty Images[/caption] However, in the absence of the injured Diego Costa, and with the title in sight, Mourinho decided that efficiency would serve his team better than flair, and reverted back to his favourite shelter of defensive football. He realised that his attack had teeth in Hazard, Fabregas, Oscar and Willian, but the bite was gone. Chelsea had already opened up a 10-point lead at the top of the table, so Mourinho’s promise went out of the window as winning trumped style. But we should not forget this Chelsea team were scoring 2.15 goals per match at the half-way point of the league and still average 1.97 goals a game even after losing their star striker (while conceding 0.77 goals a game). Only Manchester City, with 71, have scored more goals than Chelsea’s 69. Mourinho’s team has actually sparkled against many an opposition this season. The Cesc Fabregas-Costa partnership was a symphony of creative expression before Fabregas was asked to sit slightly deeper to allow the in-form Eden Hazard more space through the middle. That Chelsea don’t choose to kill off games with goals is also a flawed argument: the 6-3 away win against Everton, the 4-2 and 5-0 wins over Swansea, the 3-0 win vs Spurs, all showed Chelsea can up the entertainment factor – but, admittedly, only when they want to. It is probably Mourinho’s tendency to clog his team with an extra defensive midfielder (sometimes using defenders in that position too) against an Arsenal or Manchester United or Manchester City that gives critics their fangs. In six matches against these three teams, Chelsea’s results were: 1-0 and 1-1 vs Man Utd, 1-1 and 1-1 vs City and 0-0 and 2-0 vs Arsenal. They created only 32 chances in all these matches while their opponents created a combined 70 chances. Clearly there’s a trend here. Against the top sides, Mourinho urges his team to contain and convert, not press and pour forward. Yes, after Chelsea scored 15 goals in their first four league games this season, Mourinho said: “We won’t give up this style. The reality is that our way of thinking about football, the DNA we want in our team, is this one we are trying to show. We are showing a different style of play and we have the players. It is good to have a certain identity.” But he is a manager who wants to win above all and his trophy cabinet is all the proof he needs to rebuff his critics. The truth is Chelsea under Mourinho can play in constrasting ways: his players can cut open defenses with penetrative, lethal attacking movement; but can also sit back and grind out results by wearing down their opponents as a collective unit. It may not always be beautiful, but that doesn’t mean it should not be lauded. After all, Italy won World Cups with the cattenacio. Chelsea are the champions of England and that’s what matters most. If that sounds boring, so be it. It won’t bother Mourinho one little bit.