Despite Chelsea FC’s recent improvement under interim manager Guus Hiddink, anger at the players for the abysmal start to the season still remains.
On Sunday Chelsea FC defeated Crystal Palace by three goals to nil with a strong team performance. John Mikel Obi showed why he is still at the club after 10 years, Willian continued putting in great displays, and the duo of Oscar and Diego Costa began to resemble the quality players they have been in the past. In fact the Blues actually resembled a team of champions, which we are at least until May.
However, despite the better performances which have included two draws and one win with two clean sheets, there has been little decline in my personal anger at the players over the disgraceful effort they put in from August to mid-December. Their behaviour resulted in the greatest manager in the club’s history being sacked and left us languishing above the relegation zone.
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The simple premise is this; you cannot go from champions one year to essentially a relegation battle the next year without giving up on the team, the manager and the fans.
Only Willian, and to an extent Kurt Zouma, had actually turned up during the autumn months; the rest were unmotivated, incompetent and simply did not care. It is that lack of effort and fight that still irks today and our recent upturn in form does nothing to dissuade me from that point of view.
Sitting in the Matthew Harding Upper for the game against Sunderland allowed me and the rest of the Chelsea fans to rightly vent their anger towards the players. Going two goals up in quick succession seemingly confirmed that the players had not been fighting for Jose Mourinho.
Now, I am not ashamed to say that I am a part of the Mourinho-is-the-greatest fan club and that I am still devastated by his departure. Yet nobody and nothing is bigger than a club. That includes managers but also individual players, groups of players who are former champions or even nonsensical technical directors.
The fact that Chelsea are seemingly on an upturn in form ever since the Special One’s departure has provoked more irritation with a group of Chelsea players from this writer than ever before. A certain Chelsea FC technical director spoke about a palpable discord between the manager and the players. First, that is no excuse for the manner in which the club were capitulating earlier in the season. Second, the palpable discord is and should be between the fans and the players.
Turning on the style now has reinforced the lack of trust that the current crop of players have cultivated. Having said that, forgiveness is due to the old stalwarts such as John Mikel Obi and John Terry, the youngster Kurt Zouma and our player of the season Willian (yes it is only January but this a sure bet).
However, the rest of the squad still have to regain the trust of Chelsea fans. They need to show that they have the desire and fight to launch the team up the table. Even if they do so, this is one fan who will take some convincing that these players are not selfish and actually have the passion needed to represent the Blues.
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Personally, I will continue to support my club wherever we may be, but it will be a long time until I can look at this team and certain players – and call them true blues.