Rio Ferdinand believes Chelsea will have to wait until next season before their new signings can pose a significant threat to Manchester United’s grip on the Premier League.
The defender, whose United side travel to Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, says the £70m pair of Fernando Torres and David Luiz need time to settle into Chelsea’s style of play.
“The Torres deal did make me think ‘Wow, they’ve really gone for it,’” Ferdinand told Inside United magazine. “But will those transfers really improve Chelsea this season? I don’t know. Next season, I would say yeah, they will. But it’s hard to settle in quickly in January”
While Sir Alex Ferguson ultimately kept his promise and declined to make any January signings, Ferdinand had a feeling that United were looking to add to their first team squad.
“I thought that there was a chance we might make a surprise bid for someone. People assume that, as players, we’re in the know, but unfortunately we’re not. It’s not for want of trying to find out, that’s for sure!
“But the manager goes about things the right way. He keeps things to himself and plays his cards close to his chest. And he always moves quickly to make a deal.”
United sit four points clear of second-laced Arsenal at the top of the Premier League and lead Chelsea by 15 points. But although Ferdinand concedes that victory over Chelsea on Tuesday or Arsenal on 1 May will have a significant bearing on the title race, he and his team-mates are looking at a bigger picture.
“Of course we want to beat Arsenal and Chelsea, but you don’t get any more points for doing that,” he said. “You need to win every game and that’s the bottom line. That’s when experience comes into play, and we know that we have a lot of that here at United.
“We know it’s not just about those big games – we have to perform every week, against every team that we come up against.”
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Chelsea’s seeping staleness of mind cries out for a fresh approach
A team can become so settled they are stagnant. There was decay in a Chelsea line-up that could not quite see out a win over Everton in the FA Cup replay and lost on penalties. This is not purely a matter of grizzled footballers making their way to the shadows. The average age of Carlo Ancelotti’s selection was 28. The figure may be a little higher than is desirable but the real trouble lies with the dependence on a core group of long-established performers.
So it was that the main fillip to be found in the game with Everton was the sharp play of Frank Lampard, 32, who was evidently free of the calf strain that had hindered him earlier this year. Conversely, the failure to polish off the visitors was connected to the drabness of Didier Drogba, who was affected by malaria in the autumn and is the same age as the midfielder. Stagnation is not measured purely by studying birth certificates. Ancelotti should be steeped in the knowhow of his old club Milan and the expertise of a set-up once renowned for extending careers.
Keeping players in action is an achievement but purging the staleness of mind is an even more exacting challenge. Eight of Saturday’s starting line-up are in their fifth season or more with Chelsea.
Many of the squad have been through a great deal. While the defeat to Manchester United on penalties in the 2008 Champions League final was galling enough, the angst may have been deeper still the following year. Chelsea led until the last minute of the semi-final second leg when Andrés Iniesta scored the decisive away goal at Stamford Bridge for a Barcelona team reduced to 10 men by the dismissal of Eric Abidal.
Any footballer caught up in such distress will soon announce that it has only made him even more resolved to win the Champions League. The task, nonetheless, is getting steeper. That was underlined a year ago when Chelsea were eliminated in the last 16 as Internazionale won both legs of the tie. Their manager was, of course, José Mourinho, who had left Stamford Bridge when it seemed that his position was untenable once Avram Grant became director of football.
It was an episode that pointed to the convoluted nature of working at Chelsea. Mourinho is a winner of the Champions League with Porto as well as Inter and it is feasible that he will lay hands on the trophy for Real Madrid too. Shedding such a talent implied that any sense of perspective had vanished at Stamford Bridge. Despite that particular fiasco there should be no limit to the gratitude expressed by supporters to Roman Abramovich.
The Russian’s takeover of the club has seen him pay astonishing sums in his desire to make Chelsea the dominant force in football. Although the money was expressed as loans, the club itself is not liable for the total of £726m. After all that, Abramovich sees before him a side lying fifth in the table who cannot be sure of appearing in the Champions League next year. Regardless of the expenditure, Chelsea are still to renew themselves with a thoroughgoing dynamism.
That could be changing. Broadly speaking, the large sums quoted for the expenditure by Premier League clubs in the January transfer window were just the recycling of Chelsea’s outlay, with their £50m purchase of Fernando Torres allowing Liverpool the means to sign Andy Carroll and Luis Suárez. The available funds also saw Ancelotti take David Luiz from Benfica for £21.3m, despite his ineligibility for the Champions League.
It is hard to interpret Abramovich but he is unlikely to rebuild a squad at those sort of prices and has even acquired a reported affection for the financial regulations championed by Michel Platini that will stop a besotted owner from spending without restraint.
While David Luiz cannot take part, the advent of Torres should reinforce the bid for the Champions League that continues with the away leg against FC Copenhagen. It is to their benefit as well that the hosts are emerging from a winter break and lack competitive match practice.
Unlike most of the contenders, Chelsea have no other ambitions to pursue except that quest for the fourth slot in the Premier League. Torres has to be viewed as successor rather than partner to Drogba but an alliance between past and future that is effective for the next three months could be rewarding. Chelsea, too, can relish the novelty of being treated as outsiders for the Champions League, the last prize still craved by millionaire footballers and oligarch alike.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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