Premier league is generally known as the marathon, for the consistency and endurance that separates the Champions and the rest. Seldom would you see such close runners in a marathon. The finish to the premier league this season would rather resemble the 100 metre dash than a marathon.

Chelsea responded to Man Utd’s result with a good 2-0 win over the resurgent Newcastle at St. James Park. If we could two awards for the player of the year, one for the first half and another for the second half, Michael Ballack would pick up the latter quite deservedly. He seems to have the knack of picking up the crucial goals in crucial matches. It wasn’t his best performance but he made a telling contribution. Even with teams, what separates big teams and small teams is how they react in crucial moments. That’s why we see a team dominating for 70 minutes and then losing the match (I’m certainly not referring to this match) and a team does not turn up for most part of the match but ends up winning.

The first half was quite nervy for us. Newcastle were very calm and composed on the ball. They had the better of chances while we could not even get the sniff of the goal for quite some time. Only a smart goal line clearance from Terry stopped Newcastle from taking the lead. At one point I thought, may be we’ll have to wait for that luck that has kept following us this season. This time it was not an own goal but a well-prevented owen goal. The first half performance from Chelsea was not something that you’d expect in the penultimate match, from a team that are on top with level points.

I was quite impressed with the way Newcastle played. In attack and in defence, they played very confidently. They played with a belief that they could contain Chelsea and pick up something from the game. Kevin Keegan, after his poor start, has certainly improved Newcastle. By the end of the first half, Newcastle must have been very happy with the way the game had gone.

I was hoping for some kind of reaction from Chelsea in the second half. If we did not turn anything around in the next 45 minutes, our long fought season could have been over. Apparently, the Chelsea players had got that sense of urgency in the second half. We started to force things. In a few minutes into the second half, it was evident that a Chelsea goal is in its way.

After that tussle between Drogba and Ballack over the freekick against Man Utd, this time they had the responsibilities nicely segregated. One to assist, the other to score. I loved that goal. While Drogba’s execution in directing the ball to Ballack’s head was fantastic, Ballack’s positioning and finish was cool. If you see that goal again, Ballack was not trying to move around too much within the box, he was not trying to push the defenders, he was not trying to jump – all this meant the defender did not give his best to stop him. It looked like a very well trained and planned goal. It was made to look easy.

After we scored, Newcastle once again had this period where they came closer. With three-fourths of the match gone, Newcastle were tired of the running around, while Chelsea were as strong as they were at the kick off. Lampard came on for Anelka in the second half. I was quite impressed with Avram Grant that he took off Anelka, which was absolutely the right decision. I was wondering why Malouda was not removed. Easily, Malouda was the worst Chelsea player on the pitch today. Mikel was at his best today. He made a couple of dubious tackles but on the whole he was rock solid. Oh wait, Drogba was superb too. He set his team mates for goal quite a few times but did not get himself into right areas.

The way I see it, one of these two things are true – Grant wants to make Essien the permanent right back or we are getting a world class right back this summer. Essien is a brilliant footballer. He knows the game very well, and has complete awareness of the things happening across the length and breadth of the pitch. I was surprised when he was used as the right back and centre back last season. He did rather well and he even seems to gain expertise in those areas. But the problem I see in this is, in accountants terminology, the ‘opportunity loss’ of not using him in the midfield.

Finally, it so happened that the worst player on the pitch had to seal the match for Chelsea. Lampard slipped a superb throughball to Malouda who made no mistake with his neat finish. Again, it was intriguing to see that no one ran to Malouda to celebrate only his second goal of the season. In fact, I felt sorry for him. Picture Malouda running with immense joy and turning back to see none of his team mates bothering to come to him. Pity.

When the match ended, Chelsea were deserving winners and that should not have been a surprise despite a fine run at home by Keegan’s team. One worry though was Carvalho’s injury. I hope he can make a recovery for just two more matches. Grant can even play Alex against Bolton while resting Carvalho for the big day.

So it’s all going to final day of the season. It’s going to be awfully nervous on the last day. Both Chelsea and Man Utd kick off at the same time. Reminds me of the way Eredivisie finished last season. I can’t take that kind of pressure. This is my script. Chelsea and Wigan to score within 10 minutes and Chelsea scoring again within 30 minutes and both matches staying that way. And then we will be . . . . champions!