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How the Blues Found Their Swagger
Robert Millward | May 10, 2010

Chelsea captain John Terry holding aloft the English Premier League trophy at Stamford Bridge, London, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Tom Hevezi) Chelsea captain John Terry holding aloft the English Premier League trophy at Stamford Bridge, London, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Tom Hevezi)
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London. Chelsea has the statistical proof that its third title in six years was fully deserved, scoring a record 103 times for a goal difference of 71 and six wins in six games against its big three traditional rivals.

Chelsea finished the season with an 8-0 thrashing of Wigan on Sunday to become the first English Premier League team to score a century of goals and the first in top-flight football since Tottenham in 1963.

Behind those figures was the impressive way Chelsea did it. While Jose Mourinho’s two title-winning teams, in 2005 and 2006, were pragmatic rather than stylish, Carlo Ancelotti marked his first season in English football by creating a Chelsea team that blew away many of its opponents with a swagger.

Since Mourinho guided Chelsea to its first league title for half a century, Chelsea has had four more coaches try to wrest the title back from Manchester United, which had won it three seasons in a row.

The club from a fashionable part of West London is now the hot favorite to complete the rare league and cup double by beating the Premier League’s last-place team, Portsmouth, in next weekend’s FA Cup final at Wembley.

“We can win a double and, if we do, it will be a very good achievement, a first for the club and a piece of history,” Ancelotti said. “It won’t make people forget Jose Mourinho, because he won two [league] titles here and did a fantastic job. But it’s important to keep making history.”

If Chelsea adds the FA Cup to its third Premier League triumph, the club will have won 11 domestic trophies since 1997.

In his first season in English football, the man who led AC Milan to two Champions League titles lifted the pressure off himself and his players by making as few changes as possible to the squad he inherited.

Ancelotti managed to harness the talents of strikers Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, two players known to have fragile temperaments, and they rewarded him with plenty of goals and assists. With three goals against Wigan, Drogba finished as the top Premier League scorer with 29. Frank Lampard scored 22 league goals from midfield.

In a season where the title race has been closely fought from start to finish, Chelsea has had to shrug off allegations in the media about the private lives of John Terry and Ashley Cole, who were both reported to have had affairs.

Terry even had the England captaincy taken from him, and there was speculation it had affected his form.

“It’s not about my form or anyone else’s form, it’s about Chelsea winning things,” Terry said. “That puts a smile on the fans’ faces and, if we can do that, that makes us happy as a group of players.”



Associated Press