Chelsea beat Sunderland to return to winning ways in EPL
Chelsea, perhaps, would like to portray this as a return to business as usual, an everyday home win over deeply ordinary opposition. But this was deeply weird day as a crowd almost in denial chanted the name of Jose Mourinho, who left the club on Thursday, and berated their own players for rediscovering their form.
So bizarre was the mood that the crowd seemed at its least angry after Chelsea had done as it has all season and conceded a soft goal. By then, though, the champion was 3-0 up thanks to goals from Branislav Ivanovic and Pedro and a penalty from Oscar. The win was emphatic enough, but little else was simple or clear-cut.
Outside the ground, a preacher urged passing fans to seek God. "We sacked him on Thursday," one replied. There were Mourinho calendars still on sale, while an announcement about half an hour before kick-off that Guus Hiddink has been confirmed as the interim manager until the end of the season was greeted with only the most gentle ripple of applause. Hiddink was at Stamford Bridge, taking his seat alongside the former Chelsea striker Didier Drogba and Roman Abramovich in the owner's box.
The pitch-side announcer introduced the reading of the teams before kick-off with the words, "In these difficult times..." and the names of Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa, two of the biggest underperformers this season, were booed, while Willian was cheered. Fabregas and Diego Costa were both jeered as they were substituted in the second half, and their form remains a major concern.
The sense was of a fan-base unable quite to believe that the period of protracted success they dreamed of when the title was won in May will not come to pass. They have remained loyal throughout and there was a chant of Mourinho's name before kick-off. Some fans tried to approach Michael Emenalo, Chelsea's sporting director who had spoken of the "palpable discord" at the club, forcing stewards to intervene.
The crowd had just risen, seemingly as one, for a chant of "Stand up for the Special One" when Ivanovic gave Chelsea a fifth-minute lead, heading in Willian's corner. Seven minutes layer, Pedro swept a cross-field ball to Ivanovic, continued his run into the box, and mashed in his shot as the full-back's cross fell to him 12 yards out. The crowd responded by chanting Mourinho's name again and then engaging in a chorus of "Where were you when we were s***?" Clearly certainly players will not easily be forgiven their perceived role in ousting Mourinho.
It helped, of course, that Chelsea were playing Sunderland on one of its many off-days, half-paced and lacking either fight or creative thrust. However bad morale had become under Mourinho, it would have taken some effort to fail to beat a Sunderland side this lethargic. Only 22 minutes had gone when Sam Allardyce made a tactical change, taking off Sebastian Coates for Adam Johnson and abandoning the back three for a back four.
The sense of release from the Chelsea players was manifest, raising the question of how palpable they were in the ousting of Mourinho. Did they not perform because they didn't feel like it, or because the presence of Mourinho somehow inhibited them? Oscar, running through a full repertoire of tricks, certainly looked liberated. Perhaps it was significant in that regard that Chelsea's best performance of the season came against Porto in the Champions League - as though the prospect of going out of the Champions League jolted them into action for one game.
If Diego Costa hadn't still been so out of sorts, it would have been more. He missed two decent chances before half-time, and it took a a good save from Costel Pantilimon to deny Oscar. Respite was brief, Oscar converting a penalty after Willian had gone down in the vicinity of Pantilimon.
Fabio Borini, whose introduction at half-time transformed Sunderland as an attacking force, pulled one back two minutes later, nudging in after Thibaut Courtois had parried Younes Kaboul's header. Sunderland had two further chances in the three minutes that followed and, for a time, it seemed Chelsea may wobble.
But the storm soon passed and the game petered into one of the comfortable Chelsea wins that used to be its trademark. If that was familiar and a return to normality, though, there was little else at Chelsea that was. Mourinho's ghost will continue to haunt Stamford Bridge for some time yet.
