On the first-team pitch at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground last week, among the famous international footballers and their grey-haired coach, was a teenager in club gear granted full access to the session. He pinged passes at Jose Mourinho’s assistants and listened when the manager gave his instructions to the players. You might say that this young man was born to it all: he was Jose Jnr, the 15-year-old son of Jose.

How the years pass. Jose junior was only just school age when his father first arrived in the Premier League. Back then the job was to wrest the title from Arsène Wenger’s Arsenal team that had gone unbeaten the previous season, which Mourinho did at the first time of asking. As he signed his new four-year deal at Chelsea yesterday, Mourinho might say that just about everything has changed around him since 2004. Everything that is, apart from Wenger.

It has become a risk in the last 10 years to suppose that it might be different for Arsenal, to think that they might change the habit developed since 2005 when they finished second to Chelsea in Mourinho’s first season at the club, and challenge hard for a Premier League title. Even in those transition seasons when opportunity arose – David Moyes’ car crash season at Manchester United of 2013-14, or when Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City blew up the previous year – Arsenal have failed to make it count.

This summer, however, no rival club has damaged Arsenal by buying their best players, nor blown them away by signing someone else’s best. Most notably Chelsea, whose manager yesterday found himself defending the risky strategy of standing still over the course of two seasons. His club seem caught: unable to buy the players who would make a profound difference to their title-winning team and unwilling to buy those who most likely will not.

Premier League fans survey



“It’s dangerous,” Mourinho conceded. “I think that saying, is right, the saying that: ‘If you stand still, you get worse’. It’s right. But the same people can move forward. You don’t need to buy 10 players to be a better team. You can be a better team with one or two new players and be a better team, with the same people.

“It depends what you mean by ‘going forward’. Going forward is also spending £300m. We don’t do that. Chelsea likes very much to be where Chelsea is, with the stability. With or without FFP [financial fair play], Chelsea are happy to be where Chelsea are. We are happy to work the way Chelsea work. Is there a danger of not winning the league? Yes. Five want to win the league and only one can win.”

But the question remains whether Chelsea have even managed to stay still. They have sold Petr Cech, the league’s best goalkeeper for a decade, and sold him to a top-four rival. It would be fair to say that, given their status as champions, Chelsea have not made the changes in the summer that would put the destiny of the league title beyond doubt. If anything, by trusting in effectively the same XI to do it all over again, they have kept it much more interesting.
but you can see more here