Chelsea Football Club has finished the 2007/2008 Premier League season with 85 points and in second place. I think this is a fully deserved second place for the club. You could argue that it was a poetic-justice that we conceded the late goal to Bolton to take us off level with the champions, Manchester United. The fact is simple: we weren’t the best team over 38 games. We had our ups and downs and our inconsistency was perplexing. When Chelsea FC were at their best, they were the best. Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool were no match. This was confirmed by the defeats of all these sides in the end of the season. Had we been able to mimic these performances in even the majority of our games we might be flying the blue flag and calling ourselves champions, but that is not the case.

For some reason our offensive production this season as almost been scary. Not scary in a good way, scary in the way that its unbelievable how bad it often was. We were goalless against Aston Villa, Manchester United, Arsenal, Fulham, Blackburn, Liverpool, Barnsley, Schalke, Valencia, and Olympiakos. The last few weren’t in the Premier League but it gets the point across. The goalless games don’t do justice to the entire season of dross. Rarely were we constantly threatening, looking goal-bound, or creating chances. I don’t entirely understand why either because we have the players, maybe it was just the motivation at times. We’re going to need some new players this off-season and Essien better be in midfield next-year, a 4-4-2 might help as well. Here’s the most telling stat: 20 games out of 38 this season scoring 1 goal or less. Unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable for a team going for the title. 2-0 Jose Mourinho always said, that’s the aim.

To be honest the lack of goals don’t really bother me that much. If we were winning 1-0 every game and had the title, I wouldn’t care at all. If the team is only gonna put enough output for 1 goal, they better hold that goal and not give up the lead. We gave up the lead several times this season which ultimately cost us the title. Had we gone for the 2-0 in our games we’d be first place with some points to spare. I think the glimpses we received during the season of great football hurt me pretty bad. We’re shown how great we can be and shown that we won’t allow ourselves to do that.

On the same note as giving up leads, we can look to our defense for a lack of concentration. The Chelsea defense that scared the world is long gone and we’ve set the standard for conceding late on instead of scoring late on as was the case last season. Hopefully the signing of Bosingwa finally strengths up our right-back position. I don’t know much about him to make any true assumptions. The individual performances of the defense weren’t necessarily bad, it was usually the defense as a unit under-performing. Tal Ben-Haim also single-handedly gave up goals with his brilliance; he’ll be gone by the start of next season for sure. The set-play defense was abysmal throughout the entire season, starting with the Birmingham opener.

This article shouldn’t be entirely negative because 85 points and second place aren’t as bad as some would have predicted if you told them almost on entire team spent some time on the injury list, suspended, or international duty. It was only after the African Nation’s Cup ended in February that Avram Grant was able to pick and sustain a roster that had no holes in it. If you took out the likes of the players we missed for some amount of time (I’ll leave out a few I’m sure but here goes the a list: Carvalho, Terry, Lampard, Ballack, Essien, Mikel, Drogba, Kalou, Shevchenko, Malouda, Cech, Cudicini) in the other big clubs, they would have drowned very early. Arsenal’s injury list at its peak was minuscule compared to ours and they collapsed after some were sidelined. We can thank our huge squad for keeping us in the race even when we were damaged and incomplete.

Even more damaging to the Chelsea campaign was the dismissal of the legend manager Jose Mourinho. There was certainly a period of remorse in the Premier League when Jose left a team that adored him. The appointment of Avram Grant was as controversial as any moment in the entirety of the Premier League and rightly so. It can still be argued that Avram Grant was not qualified enough to take over a team that is striving to become one of the world’s top clubs. The Chelsea fans were and some still are disgusted with his tactics and general stature. I, however, won’t put the blame of a trophy-less season on the shoulders of Avram Grant. After all, this is a results oriented business and nobody can argue with how far we’ve come since the 7th game of the season. We were in with a real shout for the title and nearly got it. The advancement to the UEFA Champions League Final also in my mind waivers another season for Grant in my opinion. I still standby saying he deserves a chance to buy some players and start rebuilding in the offseason.

For me, the Barclay’s English Premier League Season 2007/2008 is one to forget. Our sometimes heartless performances have not left an impact in my mind as did prior seasons. The season was one of few highs and a lot of lows.Not everything was a controllable factor and sometimes luck played against us with injuries, suspensions, and managerial troubles. We fought like dogs during our matches and grinded our the results. There are some things I will not forget, however. Beating Manchester United and Arsenal when really needed to at home was something really special and unforgettable. Seeing Michael Ballack beat United from the spot in the 86th minute will be a glorious memory for Chelsea fans and an infamous one for United supporters. The team continued to give us hope through our results down the stretch of the season until the very last game at Bolton. There are 12 weeks until the start of the next season, a season that I have hope to champions once again. We will start rebuilding. It will surely be interesting to see who Roman Abramovic opens his checkbook for. Keep The Blue Flag Flying High.

Look out for an article assessing the player performances throughout the season!