Soccer: It's in the bag for Chelsea

LONDON - Chelsea players will be heading off on international duty this week in the belief that their long-awaited Premiership title is now in the bag.

When Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson and Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger talk about the importance of finishing second, as they did on Sunday, the race is effectively over.

It was also a significant weekend further down the table, with Liverpool winning the Merseyside derby 2-1 yesterday to close in on fourth-placed Everton, and bottom club Norwich City looking certain for relegation.

However, the team to watch are at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea's new coach Jose Mourinho has defied all the sceptics who said it would take him two years to deliver English football's biggest prize.

Their 4-1 demolition of Crystal Palace at the weekend means there are only eight games left for United to bridge the yawning 11-point gap which separates them from Mourinho's men.

United's players have done everything that could be expected of them in recent months, stringing together a 19-game unbeaten run in the hope that Chelsea would crack under the pressure, as Arsenal did in 2003.

Chelsea, though, have shown they are made of sterner stuff as they seek their first English league title since 1955.

Along with the attacking flair provided by fit-again Dutch winger Arjen Robben and Ireland's Damien Duff, Chelsea's real strength is an astonishing defensive record, with only 10 goals conceded in 30 games.

League Cup winners last month and Champions League quarter-finalists next month, Chelsea's centenary season is on course to exceed even the wildest hopes of the west London faithful.

United and Arsenal, both dumped out of the Champions League but through to respective FA Cup semifinals, have identical agendas as they try to take something from the last two months of a frustrating season.

Cup holders United will want to retain their trophy after wresting it away from Arsenal last season, while neither club wants to finish third and have to go through the final qualifying round for next season's Champions League.

Fourth place, worth England's other qualifying slot, would have been Everton's for the taking with a victory in yesterday's derby.

Instead, their defeat has made it a three-horse race between David Moyes' men on 51 points, Liverpool on 47 and Bolton Wanderers on 46, with the two losers getting UEFA Cup places. Given his modest budget, their brush with relegation last season and the loss of Wayne Rooney to Manchester United in August, Moyes has no complaints about his team's achievements.

"We're competing at a level we didn't set out to reach," he said after the derby defeat.

"We don't have the funds to be at this level, we're nowhere close to these teams - some of them have spent 100 million pounds to get fourth. We've not."

Down at the wrong end of the table, Norwich City's 20 points from 30 games leaves a team from the flat lands of East Anglia with a mountain to climb.

Safety is a full seven points away and manager Nigel Worthington knows it is an unlikely target after his team missed their four or five chances to score in a 1-0 defeat by Bolton.

"We didn't take them," Worthington said stoically.

"That's the difference between the Championship and the Premiership. It's a fine line and it's been the same all season."

- REUTERS