Premier League Hangover: Groundhog Day as Chelsea Close on Record

In the admittedly unlikely event of each Premier League club being assigned a Christmas movie that best represents them, there would be few dissenting voices if Arsenal were paired with Groundhog Day.

Director Harold Ramis’ 1993 classic about misanthropic Pittsburgh TV weatherman Phil Connors sees Bill Murray’s character trapped in a time loop, repeating the same day over and over.

As a cultural reference point to help convey a football club’s psyche, it’s often been prescribed as a comparison with Arsenal, usually after a lily-livered performance that derails a period of promise.

I’ve done it myself; it’s an easy fit. Except it doesn’t really work.

Groundhog Day isn’t really about repetition; it’s ultimately about change. It’s about learning from reoccurring history rather than repeating it ad nauseam.

If Arsene Wenger were cast in the film, he’d still be waking up to Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” each morning, Arsenal would finish each season between second and fourth—but never first—until the end of time (which to be fair, they probably will), and there would be more chance of him getting together with the groundhog than Andie MacDowell’s character, Rita Hanson, at its conclusion.

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Chelsea boss Antonio Conte doesn’t seem like a man prone to make the same mistake twice. It has certainly taken him significantly less time to work out how to get what he wants than Connors. 

Yet, just like in the film, it’s as though Chelsea are repeating the same day on a loop—it’s matchday and they win without conceding a goal. Boxing Day’s 3-0 win over Bournemouth was a club record 12th Premier League win in a row, with 10 clean sheets having been kept over the same period.

Conte might lack Murray’s sardonic hangdog expression, but few are complaining at Stamford Bridge. He’s no less entertaining. 

There’s a certain irony then to Wenger and his Arsenal side providing the Italian’s Road to Damascus moment.

Late September’s 3-0 defeat to Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium—on the back of a home loss to Liverpool—led to Conte ditching Chelsea’s tried-and-tested back four in favour of a 3-4-3 formation. Given he’s played three at the back throughout the majority of his career it’s not exactly Sir Isaac Newton arriving at the theory of gravity having watched an apple fall from a tree, but impressive nonetheless.

In hindsight, Wenger would probably have preferred a victory of the less-emphatic variety. It would not be a surprise were it to prove the defining match of the season.

Monday’s victory over a Bournemouth side as talented as it is spirited wasn’t quite a procession, but had Conte left the field to the now-familiar serenade of “Antonio, Antonio” on horseback, it would have been a fitting finale to 2016 for Chelsea and their manager. 

A year of vertiginous peaks and nose-to-the-floor troughs creaks to its conclusion with Chelsea seven points clear at the Premier League summit (which could drop to six if Liverpool beat Stoke City on Tuesday). Chelsea have previously been top of the Premier League at Christmas on four occasions. In each campaign they won the title.

After last year’s Boxing Day draw with Watford, the Blues were a staggering 27 points worse off than they are now. Just three points separated Chelsea from the relegation zone, with a mutinous home crowd having identified Eden Hazard, Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas as being ringleading conscientious objectors in refusing to go to war for departed manager Jose Mourinho.

There are not so many homemade placards at Stamford Bridge games these days.

Chelsea: WWWWWWWWWWWW pic.twitter.com/QKNMQSCooq

— Bleacher Report UK (@br_uk) December 26, 2016

Chelsea are now two wins short of Arsenal’s Premier League record of 14 …

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