Wembley wobble would guarantee a tricky title finale for nervous Blues
THE big question on Antonio Conte’s lips this week will be whether the ‘rats’ have the minerals for the run-in.
Eden Hazard was manmarked out of the Manchester United game by Ander Herrera on Sunday.
Diego Costa played like a man who was aching to be sent off.
And when Cesc Fabregas came on, as Chelsea’s Plan B, he didn’t have anything like the impact his manager will have wanted.
We all know how those three woefully underperformed for Jose Mourinho at the Bridge last season.
So if I was Conte (right) I’d be wondering if I needed to be concerned that something similar was happening, or if they are going to rediscover the spirit of champions.
If they do, then Chelsea will win the Premier League title at a canter.
But if even one of them chokes again, then the Blues could be in serious trouble with Tottenham eyes on the prize.
Conte, and the rest of us for that matter, will get a major indicator on Saturday when Chelsea and Spurs meet at Wembley in the first of the weekend’s FA Cup semi-finals.
Should Chelsea win, then psychologically it will send a message to Spurs that they are still the better team and have the cojones for the battle.
But if Tottenham come out on top, their momentum continues and Chelsea will seriously begin to wobble.
Hazard and Costa, in particular, have been superb for most of the season, both scoring goals and, in the Belgian’s case, creating them too. But Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino will have seen the job Herrera did on Hazard and that might just change the way Eric Dier is deployed and, for that matter, other opponents when they return to the Premier League.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like Herrera as a player. But he has been made to sound like N’Golo Kante, Sergio Busquets and Claude Makelele rolled into one in the past couple of days and that just isn’t the case. I’ve been scratching my head as to why the league leaders would go to Old Trafford at this stage of the season and be so inept.
And I keep coming back to the fact that, when they went on that run of 13 successive league victories, they kept 10 clean sheets and only conceded four goals.
But in the last 10 league games they haven’t kept one clean sheet and there is obviously a reason for that. Defensively, the work ethic has clearly gone down a little bit, from Costa as the man leading the press up the pitch, right through the team. The way Chelsea set up, Marcus Rashford should never have been allowed to score his goal on Sunday, yet it showed Mourinho’s men had his old side’s number from the first minute of the game.
After watching that, Spurs too will think they are there for the taking.
And if they inflict another defeat, then Conte and his men are in for a very tricky final few weeks of the season.