True Blue: Why Chelsea can be proud of their efforts this season

Chelsea can be very pleased with most of their work this season.

With the Champions League to come in six days’ time, this could very well be a unique season in the club’s long history.

Cobham, Chelsea’s luxury training ground in leafy Surrey is where all the players are put through their paces, where the senior players ply their trade on a daily basis.

It’s where all the tactics are created, where all the drills are performed with the hope that come match day, a set piece will work, a goal scored, and hopefully victory ensured.

But it’s not just the first team, Cobham is where younger players in the development department learn the tricks of the trade as well as honing their already considerable football skills.

Then of course there are the ladies and girls football teams.

They too are taught by a group of coaches dedicated to producing the best possible players and by extension performances.

And it’s those performances that are the reason why this could be a unique season for the Blues.

One would have to be living on Mars or in the depths of Papua New Guinea’s jungles not to know that Chelsea’s first eleven beat Liverpool in the FA Cup 2-1 a couple of weeks ago.

Then a few days later the youth team, went up to Blackburn Rovers to play the second leg of the Youth FA Cup final. They lost 1-0 at Ewood Park, but had a healthy and decisive 4-0 lead to take into the game.

That victory came a week after the Chelsea u-17 side won a thrilling penalty shoot-out against Arsenal to lift the girls’ FA Youth Cup.

To add to the incredible mix, the Ladies’ senior side are into the final of their FA Cup.

They face Birmingham City at Ashton Gate [Bristol City’s ground] later this month.

Should they dispatch their Midlands opponents, then Chelsea will become the first club to win both the mens and ladies senior and youth FA Cups in the same season.

It would be churlish to suggest that Chelsea are now a cup side but it’s no understatement that the club are disappointed to see the senior men finish sixth in the Premier League.

Chairman Bruce Buck, stated in Sunday’s match programme in relation to sixth position: “We do not consider that to be satisfactory and Roman and the board will be working over the summer to try and ensure that doesn’t happen again.”

Just who will be the manager to take on the job of ensuring it doesn’t happen again is anybodies guess.

Ideally the club would like to have a manager in place a couple of weeks before they travel to the USA where they start their per-season tour against Paris St Germain on July 22.

Has interim boss Roberto Di Matteo done enough to be handed the job on a permanent basis?

The ex-Chelsea player certainly has an affinity with the club and fans and would be a popular choice.

Had he managed to guide the side into at least fourth place, then it would have been almost inconceivable of the club not to give him the job. But he didn’t and the certainty of getting back into the Champions League next season, and the financial riches that come with that is not there. Chelsea will only be there, and at the

expense of fouth-placed Spurs if they defeat Bayern Munich.

But should they lose then it’s the Europa League for the boys.

But that’s for another day.

For now the coaches and staff at Cobham can take pride in their jobs, of what they have archived this season.

Irrespective of what happens in Munich, this has been an historic season for all at SW6 and the club can give themselves a deserved pat on the back.