No end to Chelsea 'madness'

Chelsea 2 Birmingham 0

In his programme notes, Jose Mourinho described talk of winning four trophies as "madness", though the ease with which Chelsea progressed to the fifth round of the FA Cup suggests that such a record-breaking season is not beyond them.

Winning is clearly habit forming but some of the Stamford Bridge loyalists seemed almost indifferent to this latest triumph, which barely required Chelsea to leave their comfort zone. To get anywhere against Chelsea you have to first score against them, but yesterday's 2-0 win over Birmingham was their ninth clean sheet in 11 matches.

And the FA Cup is not even near the top of the Chelsea agenda, which explains the eight changes to the team that beat Manchester United to clinch a place in the Carling Cup Final. Far more important is the Premiership title, already as good as won, and the Champions League, which resumes next month with that high-octane clash with Barcelona.

The regularity with which Chelsea have despatched all-comers this season is breeding a sense of familiarity bordering on the tedious. Robert Huth's goal, after just six minutes, for instance, immediately diminished any uncertainty about the outcome of this tie. But, to be fair to Mourinho, he gave injury-hit Birmingham credit for trying to make a contest of it. "We were a bit poor in the second half because of Birmingham's improved performance," he said.

Just as telling, though, was the fact that Chelsea finished the match with 10 men and were completely untroubled by the experience. The loss of Huth with a knee ligament injury 11 minutes from time presented Birmingham with a brief window of opportunity but they were simply unable slip through it.

Mourinho had already used his three substitutes - a casual deployment of his forces that no coach would have dreamed of making in the fourth round of the FA Cup a few years ago. Ten men, 11 men . . . it seemed to make little difference. It says much for the quality, maturity and discipline of Mourinho's players that they were able to keep possession and run the clock down.

Such is Chelsea's momentum that it's difficult to envisage a team currently potent enough to deny them any of the three domestic trophies.