Chelsea may have already wrapped up the Premier League title with time to spare, but when Liverpool visit Stamford Bridge this weekend, they’ll be doing so with the ever so faint chance of securing Champions League football for next season still alive.
While the Blues will have nothing to prove, there’s absolutely no chance that they’re going to hit the snooze button on Sunday. Over hyped matches between the big boys of the Premier League often fails to live up to expectations, but this particular fixture has often been the exception to the rule with the return fixture at Anfield and they’re two-legged League Cup semi-final meetings earlier in the campaign enough proof of that. Despite tensions simmering both on and off the pitch between these two clubs, Reds boss Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that his side will form the obligatory guard of honour for the Champions this weekend — even if his counterpart in Jose Mourinho isn’t that bothered with observing tradition.
“I don’t like it. I think, in Spain, they did it for us at Real Madrid,” said the Portuguese tactician. “If it’s tradition, that’s no problem for me. But you can show respect for the winner in many different ways. If some of them don’t want to be there and they are there just because somebody tells them to be there, maybe it’s a bit artificial.”
He’s not wrong; having barely missed out on claiming their first title of the Premier League era last season, there’ll be more than one player in the squad that will no doubt be harbouring some bitter feelings at having to clap the Blues onto the pitch. Despite being branded “boring” on more than one occasion, the London club looked like winning it from the word go — something that summer recruit Cesc Fabregas attributes to the influence of Mourinho.
“Every single day he makes you be at the top of your game. He knows how to get the best out of you and that’s what you want as a manager. A manager that can motivate a player every three days in a season when you play 60 games a season is not easy, trust me,” explained the midfield man. “He loves winning. He has some edge that goes above anyone I have been with, a mentality he shows in every single training session and in every game. I now can understand why he has won what he has won in his career.”
A near bottomless wallet has certainly helped secure a trophy or two during Mourinho’s spells in the Chelsea hot-seat, but that’s neither here nor there — for the time being, all of us have to put up with them being Champions again. With the job now well and truly done, the Blues have nothing left to play for this season, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to switch over to auto-pilot; quite the contrary, according to midfielder Nemanja Matic.
“We will be prepared for those games. Of course we don’t have the pressure of needing to win the league anymore, we are first whatever, but we will play seriously and try to enjoy the games we have left,” mused the 26-year old when asked how the club would like to finish the season off. “We have done a great job this season and we want to carry on like that until the end.”
–Steven
