Chelsea Drop More Points

After Burnley lovingly went and took maximum points off Manchester Mercenaries on Saturday evening, the Premiership leaders were gift-wrapped a golden opportunity to extend their lead at the top of the charts to eight points. However, the great reaction to the embarrassment at home to PSG didn't materialise, at least not until the second half. As a consequence, goal shy Chelsea had to make do with yet another tiresome draw.

Although Southampton's penalty was debatable [Aren't most penalties?], the Saints were more than worthy of parity at the halfway stage. In fact, as the first half wore on, it was the south coast team that was bossing the match and asking difficult questions of their hosts. At least Diego Costa returned to goalscoring ways, which is something of a relief, not least because scarcely anyone else in the team seems capable of joining him in hitting the back of the net. It is no coincidence that as the goals are drying up for the Blues, so the points are also slipping away too. While the challenge of Manchester Wannabes is all over the place, Arsenil and even ManUre [and Liverfools] are all on a roll at the moment. The Blues still have to play those three teams. The west London team would do themselves a big favour by taking care of home matches against Burnley and Southampton, thereby easing the pressure to obtain "a result" against more formidable opponents in April and May, but hey Chelsea wouldn't be Chelsea if they didn't choose to do things the hard way.

I still won't accept that Chelsea are Premiership champions until it becomes almost mathematically imposssible for the chasing pack to overtake the Blues. As things stand, the momentum has vanished from Chelsea's Premiership charge. Jose is almost completely reliant on the same eleven or twelve players from one match to the next. He has little faith, apparently, in the reinforcements. Mind you, maybe he has a point. Juan Cuadrado so far has been little short of plain awful. Is he even an improvement upon Mo Salah?

However, there is a need to tinker with the team, or at least with the formation or strategy, as Chelsea have gone completely stale. Oscar has not been pulling his weight for a long time now and even the Fabregas-Matic axis is now malfunctioning. Chelsea need a fresh approach or to bring in a few fresh faces. Surely Ramires or Loftus-Cheek, armed with his youthful enthusiasm, could do a job in midfield alongside Matic, allowing Fabregas to play further forward, in place of the redundant Oscar? 

Finally, while Chelsea prepare for the visit to Hull [one of their last fixtures outside of the large metropolis], it is worth dwelling on the big issue of penalties. Yes, Mourinho is right to ask whether Chelsea would have been awarded the penalty that was granted to Southampton. Yes there have been several occasions this season when Chelsea were denied clear penalties [whilst Arsenil, Liverfools, and Tottensham have no problems with being allocated less obvious penalties]. However, if Chelsea were a lot more potent in front of goal or at least more creative in the final third, then penalties [or the lack of them] would be an irrelevance. It is after all no coincidence that while Chelsea have been struggling for some time to put matches to bed and put stubborn teams away, then suddenly we are looking to the match officials for assistance. If on the other hand we can return to scoring three or four goals from open play, then we completely take refereeing decisions out of the equation. Seeking penalties is what struggling teams resort to. Good teams who are free-scoring don't need to worry their pretty little heads about the decision-making of flawed judges.

Until such happy times as Chelsea overwhelm their lesser opponents with goals, then I'm afraid we will continue to get distracted by the need for referees to reward us with penalties. Penalties are a red herring. The fact that Diego Costa is perpetually denied one disguises the fact that we are not firing on all cylinders of late, clinging without success to precarious one-goal leads. Unless Chelsea return to their autumnal comfort zone, the Premiership just might slip away to one of the red triumvirate. 

CHELSEA 1 Southampton 1; half time: 1-1. Sunday 15th March 2015.

CHELSEA goal scorer: Costa

CHELSEA team: Courtois, Ivanovic, Terry, Cahill, Azpilicueta, Matic, Willian, Fabregas, Oscar, Costa, Hazard. Used substitutes: Ramires; Remy; Cuadrado.

CHELSEA LEADING SCORERS:

Costa - 19 goals

Hazard - 15 goals

Oscar - 7 goals

Drogba, Ivanovic and Terry - 6 goals

Remy and Schurrle - 5 goals

Fabregas and Willian - 4 goals

Cahill, Matic and Ramires - 3 goals

Zouma - 2 goals