Chelsea begin the season on August 11 against Manchester United. The game does not have the gravity of previous meetings, but still has all the significance.
This will be an odd game for many of the current generation of Chelsea supporters, for whom these very matches in particular often decided title races and, in one case, even a Champions League.
Manchester United against Chelsea used to be one of the most box office matches anyone could watch, and it came at least twice a season. It had character, it had excitement, it had drama and money. It usually had 22 of the best players money could buy and some of the ones it couldn’t. People who weren’t even supporters of either side would still watch and everyone would talk about it the next day.
Oh, how things have changed.
Now it is a match about who will be competing for fourth, maybe. Chelsea seem to have finally found their footing and are an interesting enough side that they could find a way to turn this year into a successful season. Manchester United are simply doing their best Inter Milan mid-90’s / early 2000’s imitation. They’re spending a lot of money to not really improve, but enriching everyone else around them and making every single headline along the way.
Objectively, Manchester United are a better side than Chelsea this season. They simply have the better players.
But for the first time in a long time Chelsea can claim to be the more stable team. Though the match may no longer be important to the way the Premier League pans out, it still carries a lot of meaning to Chelsea. There will not be many opportunities to get one over on United this season, so the Blues must make the most of the ones they can. After all, they are the direct competition for the all-important fourth position.
The disarray at Old Trafford and the positivity around Chelsea create the necessary opportunity. An away win on opening day gets the season, Frank Lampard’s tenure and the new era off to a cracker.
A win will confirm my biggest worry so far: things appear to be almost too perfect at the moment. Generally in moments like this I check for news of a massive asteroid plummeting towards earth that will end life as we know it.
I accept that this could just be my Chelsea cynicism pouring through, but one does have to worry.
Frank Lampard seems to have the whole team moving in the right direction mentally. The players are pulling for one another and not themselves, and we have heard surprisingly few of the usual “look at me, I’m important but really I’m insecure” clamoring out of the camp so far. Except for David Luiz.
Perhaps, then, just for once, Chelsea have done the right thing. They’re getting their noses down and getting on with it. They have a job to do and rather than talking about it or – as they do even more often – pointing fingers at one another and burning the house down, they’re simply going about doing it.
That’s really all they ever needed to do. They’re a good group of players, David Luiz included. The Blues have one of the most talented groups in the world, in fact.
The issue has always been simple, and even Maurizio Sarri was right about it: their mentality. Rather than playing up to and beyond their potential, the entire side seemed resolute in their determination to play down from it.
This then raises the question if this is all really because of the transfer ban. Was the idea that Chelsea could buy players and the undeniable excitement provided by that distraction really just that to the entire club? A distraction? Have they known how to properly run a football side this entire time and just not done it because they were distracted?
They will likely never be my dream of an Athletic Bilbao in Blue, but that’s all right. A club that simply understands that football is about more than who you buy and who you sell will be enough for me.
This summer has been delightful in how paint-drying, relationship status conversation, dance recital boring it’s been. If only it could always be like this!
Chelsea have managed their summer remarkably well. They knew what they needed to do and they went out and did it quickly without a fuss. One can only hope that when the transfer ban ends they look at the way Juventus do business moving forward. But even if they do not choose the perfect model for the future, things may finally be changing around Stamford Bridge.
When the season opens on August 11, win or lose, this will be a Chelsea side worth being proud of and loving again for the first time in a very long time. That’s a win before the match has even started.