English FA Premiership/ Bolton Wanderers 0 Chelsea 2: The championship was already a certainty, but Jose Mourinho still turned this game into the edgiest of gambles. With tomorrow's return leg of the European Cup semi-final against Liverpool at Anfield in prospect, he still put key Chelsea players at risk of Bolton Wanderers' pounding and the potential anti-climax of failing to clinch the Premiership title.
With the game goalless, there was a galvanising tirade from him at the interval. Boldness is Mourinho's default setting. When he could have afforded to send out a shadow selection and accept that the league would be won another day, the manager made this fixture his priority. Knowing the side were already tired, he must have judged that the tonic of triumph would be far better than an afternoon's rest.
The impact has been intense. "I just want to break down and I probably will when I get back to my hotel room on my own, when I sit back and watch it on TV," admitted the captain John Terry before leaving the Reebok.
He was not suggesting, however, that Chelsea will still be emotionally drained against Liverpool.
"This is the freshest I've felt all season," the captain claimed. "Believe me, when we get there and see our fans and their fans, any little bit of tiredness will go out of the window. Last year we got knocked out at this stage of the competition. It's one of the worst feelings I've ever experienced and I don't want to go through that again."
Terry would not have felt reinvigorated on Saturday had the game proceeded in its first-half manner. Kevin Davies ought to have had Bolton in front but headed too close to Petr Cech.
No soft words were on offer from Mourinho in the visitors' dressingroom. "Yes, he was fuming," Terry admitted. "He was going, 'Listen, give me the shorts and give Steve Clarke the shirt - and we'll go out and work harder than you lot have done'."
It is as well that the superb Frank Lampard was not forced into any job swap. Bolton's Sam Allardyce was indignant that, with an hour gone, no foul was awarded for Jiri Jarosik's alleged impeding of Fernando Hierro as headers by Eidur Gudjohnsen and Didier Drogba took the ball on to the Chelsea talisman. The manager, though, would admire the tenacity and skill with which Lampard turned inside Vincent Candela to finish with a low shot.
The scorer's stamina complemented his technique for the goal, 16 minutes later, that quelled Bolton. As a Gary Speed corner was cleared he broke from his own penalty area and Claude Makelele, with an excellent left-footed pass, sent him clear.
From the halfway line, Lampard kept a bobbling ball under control to round Jussi Jaaskelainen and finish.
He had urged that Chelsea kick toward their own fans in the second half, having foreseen the winning of the title in front of them. All was not dream-like flawlessness as he dealt with an unruly ball: "I was just thinking as I ran, don't f*** it up." Lampard had "the best day" of his career, while Terry has long suspected history in the making and has been keeping every shirt he has worn this season. There are 51 of them so far and his task is to overlap them so that the display fits on to the wall in his house.
Arjen Robben is the more pressing problem for Chelsea. He appeared merely as a substitute against Liverpool last week but still had difficulties with his injured ankle. "After 10 minutes it was quite bad," he said. "I couldn't do anything dangerous - dribbling or anything special."
Even if Robben did not rebel when initially picked in Mourinho's starting line-up for that match, his disquiet is obvious. "For my body, it's best to rest," the Dutchman stated, "but Tuesday is such an important game. I will try of course. I know it's a risk, but we have to see."
Robben's ambivalence is obvious and Mourinho might settle the issue by omitting the attacker if Damien Duff has recovered from a tight hamstring.
Guardian Service
