A lready this season feels as though it is less about the pursuit of the title for Chelsea as the pursuit of records. They are six points clear at the top of the Premier League having dropped four points from 12 games and, with all due respect to Southampton, they are eight points clear of their nearest realistic title rivals. Even more worryingly for the pack, they have already played away at Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton. There may be 26 hurdles still between them and the finish line but the sense is that the most testing ones have been cleared. An unbeaten season – which would be just the third in English league history – is certainly possible, although there is always an element of luck in such things, in avoiding those games that happen to all sides, however good, when they pepper the opposition goal, fail to score, and concede on the counterattack. But so too are numerical records. Chelsea hold the record for most points gained in a top-flight season: 95 in 2004-05. Project the 32 points they have won in 12 games over the course of 38 games and you get 101. That, obviously, would be an astonishing total but a record is a definite possibility. Then there is the matter of the margin of victory. The record stands at 18, when Manchester United won the league with 91 points in 1999-2000 and Arsenal came second with 73. The extraordinary thing about that season is that after 12 games United were only fourth in the table, with 24 points – that is, eight fewer than Chelsea have now. Leeds, who finished 22 points adrift, were top with 26, Arsenal a point behind and Sunderland, playing the Southampton role, ahead of United on goal difference. United went on to win 21 of their final 26 games of the season. Even in 2004-05, Chelsea did not start as well as this. Then, after 12 games they had 29 points and were two points clear of Arsenal and six clear of Everton in third. That hints at the other feature of this season: it is not just that Chelsea are good, it is that all their rivals are in some degree of transition. Manchester United moved fourth with Saturday’s victory at Arsenal but their tally of 19 points is lower than any other team in fourth place after 12 games since the switch to three points for a win in 1981. This is a season not just of one team of brilliant remorselessness but of a pretty weak second rank. City or United may click into some kind of form at some point but that gap is looking insurmountable. The only side to have taken more points from their first 12 games are Manchester City in 2011-12, who were on 34 points after 12 matches, five clear of United. The last time any side had a lead of this magnitude after 12 games was 2005-06, when Chelsea were six clear of Wigan Athletic and 10 clear of Manchester United (both of whom had played a game fewer). Before that, you have to go back to 1993-94 when United led Norwich and Arsenal by nine points. Teams simply do not throw away leads like this, and particularly not teams like Chelsea. With José Mourinho, you sense he can pretty much keep a clean sheet whenever he likes. The defence has been a minor issue this season – just four clean sheets in 12 games, as opposed to 18 in 38 last season, although it is worth pointing out that 14 of those came in the final 22 games of the season, after Mourinho lost his temper following the Capital One Cup defeat to Sunderland and vowed to go back to basics. Even if Diego Costa’s goals dry up (and he is in remarkable form at the moment, scoring 11 from just 31 shots, as against a league average of 9.55 shots per goal); even if teams work out how to shut down Cesc Fàbregas, as United’s deployment of Marouane Fellaini did at Old Trafford, there are enough other options to bring them goals. Oscar, Eden Hazard, Willian and André Schürrle can provide a spark if required. This is also a noticeably big team: John Terry, Gary Cahill, Nemanja Matic, Branislav Ivanovic and Costa offer a threat in the air; a fifth of Chelsea’s 30 league goals this season have come from set plays. The only aspect that can keep Chelsea from breaking records is a good run in the Champions League. If the lead is eight points or more come March, who could blame Mourinho if he began resting players in the Premier League to keep them fresh for Europe? Since joining Porto, Mourinho has won the league in his second season at every club he has been at. It looks like he is going to do it again, and perhaps in doing so break one of his own records.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 15:33:14 +0000
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