The 2015/16 Barclays Premier League season has been all manner of strange. Chelsea FC has tried to control it, and that’s why they are where they are.
Nearly one month into the New Year and these things are true: Arsenal is top of the Premier League on goal differential. Tied on points with Arsenal is Leicester City, who have scored two more goals (39) but given up five more (26). Manchester City has scored the most goals in the League (43), but have already been held scoreless five times—once by current cellar dwellers Aston Villa—after only failing to score just three times all of last season. So far Tottenham Hotspur has allowed the fewest goals (18), last year’s campaign saw them let in a total of 53. Leicester City have only lost two Premier League matches all season; Chelsea, currently 14th, have already lost nine—three times as many as the entirety of last season.
What I’m trying to say is THIS SEASON OF THE BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE IS JUST %^$@#’IN STRANGE.
Good, now that I got that out let’s continue.
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Sometimes there’s no explanation for the strange, strange just is. It’s so and it will be so until it isn’t anymore. That’s the nature of strange—either the strange eventually becomes normal (filing into a flying metal tube to travel Earth via the sky), or, we simply outwait it (Lady Gaga). The one thing you absolutely can not do to strange is fight it with routine and overbearing normalcy. Trying to do so will result in it wearing a meat dress to your funeral.
Under Mourinho, Chelsea tried to fight strange with control. It didn’t work, everyone got frustrated, Mourinho fired some people, frustration persisted, and then he got fired. Strange sat cross-legged on a unicycle and laughed at us between bites of whatever Eden Hazard spent the offseason eating.
We broke the emergency glass and pulled out Guus Hiddink but have still been plagued by mediocrity and a force-fitting of routine. Sure John Obi Mikel has been tabbed to replace Matic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek has been rescued from his Cobham tower cell. But in this environment of Strange, normalcy is still Hiddink’s primary goal. His squad selections are eerily similar and despite reportedly being asked to play the youngsters, appearances by Baba Rahman, Loftus-Cheek, or Bertrand Traore are slightly less evasive than Halley’s Comet. (Pedro’s current form resembling a tasered squirrel has pretty much forced Hiddink into playing Kenedy)
Chelsea keep looking for Strange to get out of the way so it can run toward Normalcy in slow motion on a beach. Waiting for Hazard to be Hazard, yet he’s still goalless. Costa to be Costa, which, in terms of looking for fights he has been, but only has seven goals. Two of the top five goalscorers this season play for Leicester City; included in the top five is Odion Ighalo (a guy Chelsea might pay a large sum to be New Drogba), and Romelu Lukaku (a guy Chelsea might pay another large/r sum to re-buy as New Drogba…assuming he still likes us).
But keep in mind that strange isn’t synonymous with crazy, Chelsea won’t be top-4 but also won’t be relegated. Strange loves company more than misery, the only requirement is that you too must be strange. Chelsea have the athletes to fight strangely. Since one striker isn’t firing consistently, try two and switch to a 4-4-2. If Hazard, Fabregas, and Costa can only combine for eight goals and eight assists by almost February then let’s see what Kenedy, Loftus-Cheek, and Traore might do on a pitch together. And strangely, though if you’re following, not at all, Kenedy has more successful elasticos than ex-Barcelona sparkplug Pedro has assists.
Next: Chelsea FC vs Arsenal: Team News, Prediction and Stats
Our strange started very early with Chelsea losing 4-2 to an American team named after an energy drink. And still the strangest thing about this season is that Chelsea, last year’s league leaders from match day 1 through 38, has nothing in the League to win or lose. That hasn’t been the case, one way or the other, for nearly two decades. It’s calling us and it’s time. It’s time to admit defeat over control and wrap loving tentacles around the scaly purple back of Strange.