In educational terms, it truly has been an A* season for Chelsea and their loyal band of followers.
At the beginning of the 2013/14 season upon Jose Mourinho’s return to English football, the Portuguese tactician set about rebuilding a squad that had of course won the Champions League while he was away but ultimately slumped behind Manchester City in the Premier League title race.
Referring to his Blues project as the ‘little horse’ on many an occasion last season, fast forward a year and the West London side are now a thoroughbred in every sense of the word.
Having claimed their first Premier League title in five years courtesy of a trademark 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge last weekend, Blues supporters are currently on cloud nine.
With our resident Chelsea fans boasting smiles on their faces more weekends than most here in the Football Transfer Tavern, it is easy to forget that Jose Mourinho’s men did slip up a couple of times in what has otherwise been an imperious 2014/15 campaign.
So for rival fans of the Blues machine, we have identified what could possibly be the five worst moments of Chelsea’s memorable season.
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Click on Jose Mourinho to reveal what we think are the worst 5 moments of Chelsea’s season.
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02/02/2015 – The signature of Juan Cuadrado from Fiorentina
Chelsea aren’t usually a club to let a transfer window pass them by without bringing some kind of reinforcements into Stamford Bridge and that again proved the case in January whereby Mourinho splashed out £23.3 million on the signature of Juan Cuadrado from Fiorentina.
The Blues’ solitary purchase in the winter transfer window, this fact alone showed that Chelsea were at this stage only adding the finishing touches to an outstanding playing roster.
That said, Cuadrado has been much maligned since his switch from Serie A with many of our Blues regulars claiming he lacks the game intelligence required to succeed in West London.
With scepticism more widespread than ever, Cuadrado needs to improve vastly to get Blues supporters back on side and what made it worse was that Mohamed Salah – sent the other way on loan to Florence – actually started scoring the minute he departed SW6!
25/01/2015 – Blues fans waking up to find no Chelsea in the FA Cup fifth round
The shock of the season; the shock of the decade and then some?
In recent years, the footballing fraternity have become accustomed to many a voice claiming that the FA Cup has lost its magic but on a crazy day in January, that so-called magic was restored in abundance for neutrals who saw League One Bradford City – yes Bradford City – register an outstanding 4-2 victory against the Blues at Stamford Bridge.
It was the fourth round of the world’s oldest knockout competition and to add to the sheer brilliance of the result, Chelsea actually led their modest opposition 2-0 on the day through Ramires and Gary Cahill.
To everybody’s astonishment, the minutes 41, 75, 82 and 94 will forever be etched into Bantams folklore after Jon Stead, Filipe Morais, Andy Halliday and Mark Yeates completed the mother of all unlikely comebacks.
11/03/2015 – Hearts broken by a former fan favourite at Stamford Bridge
To their credit, in recent times Chelsea have strangely been staunch advocates of Financial Fair Play.
While the Blues have spent big money to lure the likes of Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa to Stamford Bridge recently, it can’t be ignored that Jose Mourinho has received equally large fees for some of his utility players such as David Luiz and Ryan Bertrand who were remarkably sold for a combined £60 million.
All well and good, no?
Well, on one March night at Stamford Bridge, it was the former player who came back to haunt Chelsea with David Luiz registering an 86th minute equaliser to cancel out Gary Cahill’s 81st minute strike which gave Blues supporters hopes of progressing to the nest stage of the Champions League.
What was to follow was a scintillating passage of play that ultimately ended up in Thiago Silva knocking the Blues off their perch.
Perhaps PSG’s finest night in European football to date since Nasser Al Khelaifi’s grand investment.
06/12/2014 – Six minutes’ stoppage time and no breakthrough against NEWCASTLE!
For much of the early part of the season, the talk of the tavern was whether Chelsea were going to emulate the Arsenal ‘Invincibles’ of the 2003/04 season who went through an entire Premier League campaign undefeated.
Now in May and with two fixtures remaining, Chelsea have still incredibly only lost two fixtures and could have good reason to think they could match the Gunners’ feat next term but their hopes for this one were ultimately crushed back on December 6th against Newcastle United.
It’s crazy to think right now that Chelsea could struggle against the Magpies who were a completely different animal in the early part of the campaign under Alan Pardew compared to the shambles under John Carver at the moment.
But the North East side maintained their impressive recent record over the Londoners at home and it was again Papiss Cisse who was the thorn in the Blues’ side bagging a brace on a day whereby Chelsea became mortal again.
01/01/2015 – That night at what is usually ‘Three Point Lane’
Wouldn’t it be nice to get on with your neighbours?
Not at all; London pride was at stake back on New Year’s Day and in one of the most entertaining fixtures of the season, Tottenham defied the odds to blast five past Thibaut Courtois and you guessed it, Harry Kane was the man who stole most of the plaudits.
With Diego Costa opening the scoring in the 18th minute, nobody could have forseen the glut of goals that followed the Spanish international’s strike.
With Andros Townsend, Danny Rose and Nacer Chadli also joining Kane on the Spurs scoresheet, this was a rare emphatic derby day triumph for Spurs at a venue that Chelsea fans have become accustomed to usually calling ‘Three Point Lane’.
