This is the way it was supposed to be.

Chelsea suffocating and demoralizing.  The central defense oppressive. The midfield unruffled and in control. The fullbacks daring.

And the Golden Boot, Didier Drogba, terrorizing his enemy into submission.

For reasons we’ll get into, the promise of Chelsea’s season was dashed by the reality.

But for a day we could dream of what might have been.

Ancelotti fielded Chelsea’s favorite 4-3-3. An “old school” midfield of Lampard, Essien and Mikel. A frontline that blended old with new, Kalou getting a start with Malouda and Drogba.

And backing them up, a massively powerful bench waiting to fill in the holes. Anelka and Torres to score. Benayoun and Zhirkov to support the attack. Ivanovic to defend and a youngster ready for some experience.

Just like in our pre-season dreams, it all went perfectly. Drogba was once again the Man of the Match, fearsomely strong, quick and daring. In the 3rd minute his backward head flick sent the ball to Malouda at the far post, who only had to push it in for Chelsea’s first goal. John Terry began the move with a beautiful cross pass to find Ferriera.

Then the profligate Kalou stunned everyone with a brilliant individual display, running the ball across the top of the box then unleashing an unstoppable shot into Foster’s bottom left corner.

Later, with the game comfortably in control,  a youngster is blooded and plays well, just as Chelsea’s brass had planned when they assembled this squad last summer. In this case it was left back Ryan Bertrand, in for Ashley Cole, who lofted a pinpoint pass to find Malouda in between two defenders, a simple header giving the Frenchman his second score.

David Luiz made the kind of silly over-aggressive play that is beginning to define his defending, to concede a penalty.

But other than that blip, this was how Chelsea’s season was supposed to be. A comfortable 3-1 win and everyone happy.

With such promise, how did it all go so horribly wrong? Carlo Ancelotti answered that question on Tuesday.

“I don’t think the squad was good enough this year.”

The plan for this season, a plan Ancelotti says he supported, was to replace old players with young ones and gradually give them playing time. It was assumed that the veterans would be strong enough to carry the load while the kids learned on the job.

But as we’ve found out, that was a wildly optimistic plan. Injuries, age and illness exposed Chelsea’s squad as thin and inexperienced.

Ancelotti again:

“But at the start of the season we couldn’t have envisaged having very important players all out at the same time.”

“We struggled to manage this – without Lampard, Drogba, Essien, Terry, Alex. It was very difficult to move on without these kind of players – not just their technical qualities but their personality and character. We missed them in November and December when we didn’t play well. I think it cost us quite a few points. Before the ‘difficult moment’ we’d used our younger players, like [Gaël] Kakuta and [Daniel] Sturridge.

“We’d done it gradually but it was harder to put the responsibility on them when the difficult moment came.”

Perhaps the signature game of the “difficult moment” was the shocking 3-0 home loss to Sunderland in November.

Who could Ancelotti turn to for help when his starters struggled? Let’s look at Chelsea’s bench for that match: Sala, Bruma, Kakuta, Van Aanholt, McEachran, Turnbull and Kalou.

A bunch of inexperienced kids and Kalou.  Not exactly as strong as Wednesday’s bench of Torres, Anelka, Zhirkov, Ivanovic  and Benayoun.

That, ladies and gentleman, is the story of Chelsea’s season.

The midfield has been a mess. Lampard just isn’t the same player. He’s been slow and off form since his injury and I think he’s too old to ever be the player he was just a season ago. Ramires is the best midfielder but he’s a runner/tackler, not a creator. There’s nobody in the midfield to run things. Hard to believe this, but journeyman Yossi Benayoun’s season-long injury was a huge blow.

Midfield/attack is also a problem. Malouda went off the boil a couple of months into the season. Without Zhirkov (injured) he played too many games. He’s 30 years old and can’t do that. Drogba’s malaria visibly sapped his strength and speed. Only in the last 2 weeks does he seem to have recovered. Torres needs a full off-season to recover both mentally and physically from the last 18 months. He should never have played in the World Cup.

The result is that Chelsea have had no finishing for most of the season. Kalou is the very definition of a wasteful player. And they blundered with Sturridge. He came to life in a reserve match on January 6th but Carlo never gave him a chance in a Premier League match and eventually loaned him out. Huge mistake.

The defense has been good. But there’s no right back. Ferreira is just awful. Bosinga has only slowly recovered from a long-term knee injury and he was never a star anyway. At left back Ashley Cole has played almost every single match and is completely worn down. Center-back has been a strength. Terry’s actually had a good season since coming back from his back injury. Ivanovic, Alex (when available) and Luiz have been pretty good.

But I look to personnel management last summer as the real problem. For depth, they placed ridiculous expectations on young players like Bruma, van Aanholt, Kakuta and McEachran. The squad is old, thin, injury-prone and suffering from World Cup exhaustion.

None of this is lost on the players themselves. Since recovering his health Drogba is playing like a man possessed — and like a man at risk of losing his job. Florent Malouda just gave himself a mohawk, possibly an emotional response to his precarious status for next season.

This has been a season of turmoil for Chelsea.

And yet there’s still a glimmer of hope. 5 games to go and 6 points behind.

Hope. A tease. Just enough to tempt a fan into wondering what might have been.