JOHN DILLON

It was around this time of the season five years ago that Chelsea had begun a full cavalry charge towards winning the Premier League title.

As the last significant hurdle towards nailing the prize for the first time since then looms at Arsenal on Sunday, the Spring air may rekindle fond memories of the goal-glut of 2010 under Carlo Ancelotti.

That was the year the championship was clinched on the final day with a 8-0 thrashing of Wigan Athletic.

Two weeks earlier, Stoke City had been thrashed 7-0. A month before that, Aston Villa were skewered 7-1, in the immediate wake of a 5-0 thrashing of Portsmouth. Records tumbled all around. Didier Drogba scored 37 goals in that campaign.

It is finishing in a very different way this time and not just because Drogba, aged 37, is struggling to re-connect with past glories.

Jose Mourinho is shepherding his diminished team carefully and meticulously towards the line, with the last two results 1-0 wins against Manchester United and, before that, Queens Park Rangers.

Player Ratings: Chelsea vs Manchester United 15 show all Player Ratings: Chelsea vs Manchester United 1/15 Thibaut Courtois: 6 Not very busy, but saved well from Falcao in the first half and commanded his penalty area. GETTY 2/15 Branislav Ivanovic: 5 Often left isolated against Luke Shaw and Ashley Young but coped as well as he could. 3/15 Gary Cahill: 6 Did not allow United to run in behind him, avoided conceding late penalty 4/15 John Terry: 7 Won his physical battle with Falcao comfortably. Might have been different had he been facing Rooney up front. GETTY 5/15 Kurt Zouma: 5 Brought back into midfield, Zouma stuck well to Marouane Fellaini, without doing much in possession. 6/15 Nemanja Matic: 6 Relished the physical battle and gave United more of a fight than Yaya Touré managed last Sunday. GETTY 7/15 Cesc Fabregas: 5 Despite platform of two holders, he struggled again to dictate play, he was often outmanoeuvred by Herrera. Getty 8/15 Eden Hazard: 8 Proved once again why he is going to be footballer of the year with a brilliant goal. Getty 9/15 David de Gea: 4 Beaten through his legs with Chelsea’s first attack and chipped by Drogba with their second. getty images 10/15 Antonio Valencia: 5 Did not enjoy going one on one with Hazard but which full-back has this season? Getty 11/15 Chris Smalling: 6 The new leader of United’s back-line, his position was good and he organised with maturity. GETTY 12/15 Luke Shaw: 6 Impressed on his first league start for two months, bursting down the left with plenty of pace and ambition. Alex Livesey/Getty Images 13/15 Wayne Rooney: 6 Forced back into midfield, he worked hard and passed well. Would have been a better option up front than Falcao. GETTY 14/15 Ashley Young: 5 Not as influential as he has been in recent weeks, with delivery often disappointing. 15/15 Radamel Falcao: 4 Dismal in the first half, slightly sharpened up after, and hit the post late on. 1/15 Thibaut Courtois: 6 Not very busy, but saved well from Falcao in the first half and commanded his penalty area. GETTY 2/15 Branislav Ivanovic: 5 Often left isolated against Luke Shaw and Ashley Young but coped as well as he could. 3/15 Gary Cahill: 6 Did not allow United to run in behind him, avoided conceding late penalty 4/15 John Terry: 7 Won his physical battle with Falcao comfortably. Might have been different had he been facing Rooney up front. GETTY 5/15 Kurt Zouma: 5 Brought back into midfield, Zouma stuck well to Marouane Fellaini, without doing much in possession. 6/15 Nemanja Matic: 6 Relished the physical battle and gave United more of a fight than Yaya Touré managed last Sunday. GETTY 7/15 Cesc Fabregas: 5 Despite platform of two holders, he struggled again to dictate play, he was often outmanoeuvred by Herrera. Getty 8/15 Eden Hazard: 8 Proved once again why he is going to be footballer of the year with a brilliant goal. Getty 9/15 David de Gea: 4 Beaten through his legs with Chelsea’s first attack and chipped by Drogba with their second. getty images 10/15 Antonio Valencia: 5 Did not enjoy going one on one with Hazard but which full-back has this season? Getty 11/15 Chris Smalling: 6 The new leader of United’s back-line, his position was good and he organised with maturity. GETTY 12/15 Luke Shaw: 6 Impressed on his first league start for two months, bursting down the left with plenty of pace and ambition. Alex Livesey/Getty Images 13/15 Wayne Rooney: 6 Forced back into midfield, he worked hard and passed well. Would have been a better option up front than Falcao. GETTY 14/15 Ashley Young: 5 Not as influential as he has been in recent weeks, with delivery often disappointing. 15/15 Radamel Falcao: 4 Dismal in the first half, slightly sharpened up after, and hit the post late on.

There is nothing wrong with this, of course. Witnessing Mourinho do what he does best – plan, shape and stick resolutely to his convictions – remains a compelling spectacle for anyone with the grown-up belief that the game fundamentally requires varied shades of approach.

If everybody played as attractively as Barcelona are once again doing, well, they wouldn’t be unique, would they?

Just as it is in in the forthcoming boxing super-fight between Floyd Mayweather junior and Manny Pacquiao, styles make fights. And top-level football matches.

Mourinho is Mayweather, the careful strategist who proudly and unrepentantly makes a tactical virtue of conservation, dictation and counter-attack.

It is harder to envisage the ascetic Wenger as Pacquiao. But you get the idea – suffice it to say Arsenal like to be a bit more gung-ho.

At the Emirates, Mourinho can once again afford to adopt the tactics of entrenchment which defeated United last Sunday.

It may infuriate Wenger even more than it did Louis Van Gaal at Stamford Bridge.

Second-placed Arsenal’s form is rampant after eight straight league wins. Chelsea have merely ticked over in recent weeks.

With a 10-point gap, Mourinho has even more incentive to pull off something like the cautious, stringently planned heist which thwarted United.

Wayne Rooney lamented that it was his side’s best performance of the season. The Special One, meanwhile, insisted that he had pulled off the “perfect plan.”

Which he had, of course.

Wenger has already been provoked into shoving Mourinho along the touchline this season during the 2-0 defeat at Chelsea last October.

If his managerial nemesis – he has never beaten Mourinho in 12 collisions – ends Arsenal’s winning streak and lays one on hand on the big pot in typically parsimonious fashion this time around, Wenger might go into meltdown.

Back in Chelsea’s Double winning season 0f 2009-10, Ancelotti was smothered with plaudits for playing expansive and attractive football which will never come Mourinho’s way.

In one way, it’s all there in the most valid detail of all; goals. Ancelotti’s team scored a record 103 times – the first to break a century since Spurs in 1961.

This season Chelsea have scored 65, with six games to go.

When Mourinho won the title for the club in 2004-05 and again the following year, they scored 72 goals in each campaign.

Frank Lampard, a midfielder, was leading scorer each time with 14 and 16 respectively.

Meanwhile, Mourinho’s title-winning teams conceded a sparse 15 and 22 consecutively. Ancelotti’s let in 32.

Ancelotti was hailed for allowing “freedom,” to the players. Mourinho puts team discipline first.

Yet nobody wins titles on that alone. Beneath the perceived wisdom about Mourinho’s austere beliefs lies buried, for example, the memory of the flying, twin-pronged wing partnership formed by Arjen Robben and Damien Duff during his first title-winning season.

This campaign also has been two-faceted. Before Christmas, the form of Cesc Fabregas as supplier for Diego Costa was sublime. The striker gobbled up the opportunities irresistibly.

Then there is Eden Hazard, whose daring individual form will win him my vote in the Football Writers Association Footballer Of The Year award.

After the 5-0 thrashing of Schalke 04 away from home in the Champions League last Autumn, Mourinho was even moved to hail his team for playing with “this happiness, this flair, this beauty.”

Nobody argued at the time.

Under Ancelotti, the title was secured on the final day, with Chelsea one point ahead of Manchester United.

This time, a win at Arsenal could hand Mourinho the prize at Leicester City the following Wednesday, with four games to go.

So forget the easy, glib criticsm of criticising him for winning ugly. All the top do it if they have to.

Leading from the front, as Chelsea have all season, has a raw beauty all of its own.