Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri has created atmosphere to win Premier League title in first season

Title challenge: Sarri's Chelsea are joint top of the Premier league after eight matches
REUTERS
John Dillon11 October 2018

It's a tough act for any manager to win the Premier League title in his first season, but it helps if you’re in charge of Chelsea.

Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Antonio Conte all managed this feat at Stamford Bridge in 2005, 2010 and 2017 respectively.

If you want to stretch the Chelsea connection, there is also the fact that their former manager Claudio Ranieri, quite astonishingly, pulled it off at Leicester City in 2016.

Manuel Pellegrini is the only other boss to achieve this distinction in the Premier League era – since 1992-93 – after winning with Manchester City in 2014.

But it's Chelsea who are well out in front in this particular league table; which prompts the question - can Maurizio Sarri join the ranks this time around?

The Italian is eager to play down his chances. And it's true that most believed this would be some kind of transitional season for the club in the wake of Conte’s acrimonious departure.

But the team’s form, the stupendously happy frame of mind of the talismanic Eden Hazard and the general air of contentment the new coach has created around the club are not only breeding a fresh, positive set of headlines at a place more used to trouble and uproar.

Instead, the new mood also suggests that Chelsea can push Manchester City and Liverpool all the way – because Sarri appears to be the kind of boss who knows how to keep things settled and productive for months to come.

There is currently a tremendous battle shaping up with the top three only separated by goal difference.

They each have identical records; won six, drawn two.

These are early days, of course, but we can at least surmise that if Chelsea are knocked off course, it won’t be due to any of the managerial histrionics which marked the quick decline of the previous two regimes.

Where Conte and Mourinho before him brooded and provoked, Sarri just smokes – and smokes and smokes - while creating the kind of football his players love.

In Pictures | Southampton vs Chelsea | 07/10/2018

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Along with this, he says all the right things about the game with an uncomplicated and uncomplaining, if halting, simplicity and insight.

There have been no tongue-lashings for any referees yet and nobody expects one any time soon.

Rather, the grin which lit up Sarri’s face at the finish of the recent home draw against Liverpool – when victory was snatched away by Daniel Sturridge’s superb equaliser - made it plain that football can be enjoyed for football’s sake in SW6 these days.

Surely, Chelsea’s fans are enjoying this entertaining and satisfying version of the quiet life simply for the fact that it's a break from the exhausting levels of strife which existed before.

The football has been hugely attractive, too – with Hazard embellishing it with some of the most exciting form he has displayed in his six years in England.

Conte’s title win was aided by the fact that his side weren't involved in European competition. Sarri doesn’t enjoy the same advantage. But clearly, there is less pressure to succeed in the Europa League than City and Liverpool face in the Champions League. It could help as the campaign draws on.

Meanwhile, it will be instructive to watch over the coming season how Sarri deals with the lurking issue of Hazard’s potential departure to Real Madrid.

Laying the foundations: Sarri could join elite group with title win in first season
Getty Images

The issue will not be going away, with the Belgian’s contract winding down from the two-year stage and the player’s own, quite understandable admission that he dreams of one day playing there.

It's my guess that Sarri will not become embroiled in the kind of fued which bitterly developed between Conte and his star-player, the striker Diego Costa, who also hankered after a move to the Spanish capital and eventually returned to Atletico Madrid.

Such a clash seems unthinkable just now with Sarri shrewdly getting the best out of Hazard – and with the player revelling in it.

Hazard, at 27, cannot be blamed for feeling the temptation of the Bernabeu. All stellar players do. He has been at Chelsea for six years and while he has not always attained the heights he is reaching this season, he has been influential and, at times, brilliant.

He says he is open to the idea of a new deal in London and will be weighing up his next move for some time yet.

But there is perhaps the potential here for the kind of harmonious exit made by Cristiano Ronaldo when he departed from Manchester United for Real Madrid in 2009.

The deal was originally set to be concluded 12 months earlier. But Sir Alex Ferguson asked the super-star for one more year. And he got it, with United winning the title and reaching a second successive Champions League final.

Currently, Hazard looks like he could inspire Chelsea to another title triumph. It would be a satisfying finale if he left the prize as a parting gift next May.

It would be just as gratifying for Sarri, the man known in his homeland as the Loveable Loser, if he joined the First Timers club, too.

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