Neil Humphreys: Spanish stars sing the Blues
Axed Chelsea trio pay price for poor club season
Since lifting the FA Cup, Chelsea must feel like they've won the lottery, but lost the ticket.
While manager Antonio Conte waits for the axe to fall, club owner Roman Abramovich has gone AWOL because his British visa hasn't been renewed.
The Russian can't get on a plane to his beloved Chelsea and three of Chelsea's superstars can't get on a plane for their beloved country.
Alvaro Morata, Marcos Alonso and Cesc Fabregas were conspicuous by their absence last night, when Spain's World Cup squad was announced.
They didn't make the final list of 23, missing out on a World Cup dream, thanks in large part to a nightmarish campaign at Stamford Bridge.
An FA Cup winners' medal shone brightly on Saturday, but it might be losing its lustre as reality bites hard.
Morata's miserable first season has reached its poignant nadir. His omission feels like the inevitable consequence of failings that were not entirely of his making.
The 25-year-old could hardly be faulted for dragging that unwanted ball and chain around English stadiums. The ridiculous price tag, anything from £60 to £70 million (S$126m), overwhelmed the Chelsea striker.
The curse of Fernando Torres and Andriy Shevchenko struck again, turning another centre forward into a bowl of jelly at the Bridge.
Morata's renowned attributes - dogged in possession, reliable in the air and clinical in the box - seemed ideal for the English Premier League.
But his speed at Juventus and his industry at Real Madrid eluded him at Chelsea. He came. He saw. He lost his place to Olivier Giroud.
It was the worst kind of audition for Spain's World Cup squad.
His first season in English football ended with 15 goals, but 12 of them came in 2017. A back injury led to a remarkable loss of fitness, form and confidence.
By the time he was reduced to a meaningless, one-minute cameo in the FA Cup final, Morata barely resembled the beaming striker who arrived in London with two Champions League medals, 23 caps for Spain and 13 international goals.
Spain coach Julen Lopetegui clearly favours the muscular Diego Costa, but Morata's misfortune was to join a club intent on imploding from within.
Conte reportedly lost the dressing room, with several players unhappy with both the training and the tactics.
Certainly, Morata's aerial ability rarely benefited from Conte's emphasis on wing-backs and inverted wingers cutting inside. And playing Eden Hazard as a false No.9 - a move that suited neither Hazard or Morata - felt like sadistic salt in the wounds.
Indeed, Conte's post-final support for Morata, insisting that his striker should go to the World Cup, seemed back-handed and contradictory, like getting a political endorsement from former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Morata, a genuinely humble footballer who once shaved his head for charity after meeting cancer-stricken kids, deserves to rediscover his form elsewhere. Time is on his side.
The same could be said for Alonso, but the 27-year-old wing-back is a late bloomer with only a solitary cap to his name.
Besides, Barcelona's Jordi Alba has the left-back slot locked down for Spain.
Fabregas' absence, in contrast, feels like the end of an era.
At Wembley, he played that sumptuous through-ball to Hazard, which led to the only goal in the FA Cup final, just as he set up Andres Iniesta's winner in the 2010 World Cup final.
Iniesta and Fabregas were probably expected to bow out in Russia, but Lopetegui appears to have pulled the curtain down prematurely on Fabregas' career on the Spanish stage.
Having featured in the 2006 World Cup, Fabregas seems to have been around forever, winning every major honour and earning his 100th cap at Euro 2016, but he's still only 31.
But, like Morata, he paid the price for an erratic campaign with a dysfunctional club.
Conte often expected Fabregas to sit alongside N'Golo Kante and play Nemanja Matic's old role, which is rather like asking Picasso to take on the role of Iron Man.
There was the odd artistic flourish, but he was ill-equipped for the task.
Had the Spanish team been selected a year ago, when Fabregas and Chelsea's title winners were parading around west London, then the elegant midfielder would've warranted inclusion.
Fabregas' international career could be just about over.
Morata might have to leave Chelsea to avoid a similar fate.
- Catch Neil Humphreys as he gives his satirical take on the English Premier League and football every Saturday, from 10am to noon, on Money FM 89.3.
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