London is Blue Dispatch #014

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Do You Remember?

It just had to happen, didn’t it? When Ollie Watkins, who hadn’t scored all season, slotted in from an acute angle after a period of dominance speckled with profligacy, there was collective déjà vu. After the game, most minds must have wandered back to the past few weeks – of similar punishments meted out for a lack of ruthlessness and I daresay, good fortune. Others to the future, a fearful eye on the opponents to come, all capable of advanced torture techniques.

My mind, I admit, wandered further back than just these past few weeks. So, I abandoned a scouting report on a player I hope will improve enough at a club this year to come to us as a starting center forward next season, and I downloaded the game I felt mirrored what I felt after the Villa game.

Déjà Vu

Two minutes into a massive Champions League fixture, and we were already 1-0 down to a goal. A 4th minute penalty bought things level, but we fell behind again to a poorly defended far post goal. For the opposition’s 3rd, a goal that felt like our journey so far – a free kick that cannoned off the post, smacked a flailing Kepa in the face before going in. 3-1 down to Ajax at halftime, a conflict had broken out in my head. One player each in attack, midfield and defense was experiencing their very first Champions League season. The average age of that squad was 25.4 years, six months older than the side that played Villa, albeit packed with a lot more experience. Surely there was enough quality to turn it around?

In the 55^th minute, we went 4-1 down. Five minutes later, Mason Mount went off injured. Sometimes when you ask, “how does this get worse?” destiny replies with, “let me show you.” At that point disappointment turned to deflation. Abject humiliation on the biggest stage of all, that too at home. At that 60-minute mark, at the very nadir of every Chelsea fan’s emotional well-being, a clairvoyant could have placed one of increasingly absurd bets that could have set them up for life. The free kick taker who thumped a goal via Kepa’s sculpted face would one day play for Chelsea, would have been the easiest bet. That five of the individuals involved in that game – Mount, Lisandro Martinez, Donny van de Beek, Andre Onana and Erik Ten Hag would all end up at Manchester United was a more ambitious one. That Jorginho would end up third in the placing for a Ballon d’Or… well. What about that two years later, six of the players in that Chelsea squad losing 4-1 would feature in the final that would bring home the second Champions League? Plain absurd.

Great Expectations

From the pits of despair that night, we somehow made it out. Lady luck smiled and dismissed two Ajax players in a single sequence of play, gifting us a penalty in the process. It’s something I had never seen before, and probably won’t see again. The 19-year-old teenager who replaced Marcos Alonso, who’d made his Champions League debut only weeks ago, scored an equalizer that shook Stamford Bridge’s foundations to the last rivet with wave after wave of unadulterated raptured. Who knew that a few years on, that boy would take on the Chelsea armband?

And that is where we find ourselves again, I think. In the depths of the uncertain, cast away by the invigorating miasma of luck. Perhaps everything I’ve written above sounds like nostalgic drivel. You probably want to scream at me to shut up, exactly what you’d done if I’d told you at 4-1 down that we’d break even with half-an-hour, 33% of the game, left. This time, there is 74.3% of the league season still left to play.

Just like all those years ago, we have promise. Unfulfilled, yes, but it is there nonetheless. The boy with the armband is yet to return from injury. We are yet to see a blue balloon on the Stamford Bridge green. A Ukrainian speed demon lies in wait, trying to exorcise his own fears and be rid of their shackles.

There is plenty still yet to come. But do you remember how 60 minutes of excruciating lows were erased by half the minutes of exhilarating highs? This ownership wasn’t there. These sporting directors weren’t there. This manager wasn’t there and these players weren’t either. But you and me, we were there. We’ve been here before, haven’t we? I’m staying here hoping we can do it again.