Chelsea and United’s scoreless draw highlights the lack of fizzle in recent years
As Chelsea gritted their way to a goalless draw at Stamford Bridge that saw them share the points with a visiting Manchester United, I was left a little deflated. As a Blues fan myself, I wasn’t happy that we had once again failed to win at home against United— a recurring trend since 2017.
The post-match reactions from the managers differed in their tones. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took up much of his time railing against what he felt was outside managerial influence, which pressured the officiating crew led by Stuart Attwell, into denying his Manchester side a chance to go ahead after Callum Hudson-Odoi inadvertently handled the ball inside the Chelsea penalty area. In his interview with Sky Sports, Solskjaer rather comically directed his ire at departed Chelsea manager, Frank Lampard, who had raised the issue of United’s prolific appearances at the penalty spot in a press conference earlier this season. Lampard’s probing was reasonable considering United led the league in penalties received in the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons, while sitting only two penalties off the top of the charts this season. No other team has enjoyed such regularity at the penalty spot, and no other team has been awarded these same luxuries under such dubious instances since the introduction of VAR to the fold.
In similarly petty fashion, Solskjaer railed against what was presumably a Chelsea work experience student, who wrote a post in the pre-match buildup harping upon the fact that Maguire would be under close scrutiny after kicking Michy Batshuayhi in the nether regions, and rugby tackling Cesar Azpilicueta in the past with no consequences after VAR review. The former Norwegian physical education teacher fumed, “it’s cheeky when they put that on their website, that’s influencing the referees. You can read it.” If he really knew the English referees as well as he thought he did, I doubt he’d be so bold as to suggest they were literate, but the state of English refereeing merits its own treatise on another day.
It wasn’t Solskjaer’s ridiculous posturing — how he has the nerve given the lack of ambition he has shown in seven matches against the Big Six this season, a stretch that has only seen his side pick up six points, is beyond me — that caught my attention. Instead, it was Thomas Tuchel’s interview. The rangy German was a tad rueful, given the Blues improved second half showing that saw a few gilt-edged chances present themselves only to be untaken. Tuchel praised the effort and intensity shown by his side, and went on to say “if you can’t win it’s important not to lose.”
The pragmatism at play here was perhaps warranted, given the fact that the result left Chelsea just one point outside the coveted Champions League spots, but it had me in a morose mood as I struggled to process the dropped points to such cynical opposition who were content to sit back.
In the most Carrie Bradshaw fashion possible, I got to thinking. Had the Premier League, so often billed as the most exciting professional football league in the world, lost a bit of its lustre?
Perhaps I was spoiled by both the Chelsea team I first fell in love with, along with the state of the league they were plying their trade in. When Jose Mourinho strutted into West London off the back of a Champions League triumph with Porto, clad in Prada loafers and a rakish suit to proclaim himself a “Special One,” I was immediately smitten and had my allegiance sorted for life. The team that Mourinho and subsequent managers were able to build at Chelsea were awe-inspiring, all thanks to Roman Abramovic’s overflowing coffers. At any given point, one could look out onto the pitch and see several captains of international sides all fighting towards the same aim — I’m thinking of Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien, Deco, Michael Ballack, Andriy Shevchenko, Petr Cech etc. The same could be said of other teams of that era, with United boasting the likes of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney etc. There just seemed to be so much more star power, and they would show up for the big occasion time and time again.
Much of the post-match discussion led by Roy Keane on Sky Sports centred around this very topic: what has happened to the type of tilt we used to see at the top of the table? Too often, teams are content to share the points in tense, cagey nil-nil draws. And what makes it worse is they’ll be seen laughing together after the final whistle. It’s all a bit too friendly.
Part of what made that prior era so special was the tribalism that bled down to the players. Regardless of their nationality, every player worth their salt in England at that time had a sense of how much it meant to win these derbies and they hated each other even after the match had been played. England’s own golden generation of players struggled to cobble together any sort of cohesive campaign at a major tournament for this reason — there was talk that the Chelsea, Liverpool, and United lads would glower at each other in team meetings and training, still sore at whoever had got the upper hand in the past season. Players like Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard, who had risen through the ranks at West Ham, put aside their friendships and have only since been able to rekindle them upon retirement.
Aside from the tactical trend towards shutting up shop and trying to play on the counter on the big stage, I think this shift in mentality is to blame for the lack of fireworks we see in important matches. Sure, players will claim they gave it their all and they might well have done what the manager asked them to do in executing the game plan. However, you just don’t get the sense that it means as much to them to win on these occasions. Perhaps there’s also a general lack of quality. It’s difficult to remember the big names of that era going missing when needed, whereas that is most often the case in today’s climate. At the risk of sounding like a tactics-averse “yer da” supporter of a certain vintage, I might go so far as to say the game’s gone soft. Rest assured, you’ll find me on Spielverlagerung dissecting the analytics after each match, but I genuinely feel as if modern players don’t want it enough. It could be a case of most not staying at one club long enough to really buy into the culture, or it could simply be that kind of culture being harder to build up as a result of all the chopping and changing that goes on, not only amongst players, but managers too. The last match that really seemed to emulate this killer mentality was 2016’s so-called “Battle of The Bridge” between Chelsea and Tottenham, where Mark Clattenburg should have sent off the entire Spurs team as they bottled their loan chance for a title in the Premier League-era, and Eden Hazard’s wonderous goal at the death gave Leicester the title.
I hope that one day soon, when supporters are back in the grounds and frothing at the mouth for swashbuckling excitement, players will be more inclined to try something special over playing it safe, and score some goals as a result. We’ve all been locked down long enough, clubs shouldn’t set up as if their creativity is too.