Chelsea, Chelsea, Premier League champions and worthy winners.

Chelsea, Chelsea, Premier League champions and worthy winners.

Maybe we should have known it was going to happen. In fact it was a coronation waiting to happen. For the best part of several months now Chelsea were Premier League champions poised to re-claim their crown. Despite the most laudable efforts of Spurs who ran them so close in the end, this was always going to be Chelsea's year and even now those swaggering peacocks from West London are still swigging back their gallons of champagne.

When the final whistle went at Stamford Bridge last night Chelsea fans from far and wide could be heard boasting and gloating about another record breaking achievement. It was almost as if last season's disastrous offerings under the doomed Jose Mourinho were ancient history, Leicester City, last season's fairy tale Premier League champions had merely kept the seat warm and the natural order of the world had been restored.

But above all it was the season when one man and one man only pumped new life into a side who were a pale shadow of their former selves for most of last season. In fact they must have looked positively jaundiced and run down compared to the dizzy heights they'd once climbed under Mourinho. So it was that Chelsea celebrated deep into the night, players and manager Antonio Conte jumping gingerly together as fireworks exploded into a cool West London night and a still bizarre looking Premier League trophy next to them.

It's hard to know what to make of that Premier League trophy. Compared to that old First Division championship trophy which, it has to be said, had a real air of craftsmanship about it, the Premier League trophy still looks like a badly designed darts trophy. I know I'll be fiercely criticised for saying this but there is something superficially showbiz about the trophy Chelsea were handed last night. But we love football so who cares what the trophy looks like as long as the winners of the trophy are just jubilant and ready to paint the town blue in Chelsea's case. Congrats Chelsea.

Still. the Chelsea team, surrounded by all the trappings of wealth and luxury that the chairman Roman Abramovich has brought them, is entitled to feel that his toy and his property are there to be cherished and nurtured. As we know Abramovich has poured millions and billions into a club who, roughly 35 years ago, were sinking below the waves, broken by bankruptcy and about to go under. The rest of course is well documented history and Ken Bates must pinch himself every time he goes to bed. This is his fruition, his flowering, his chrysalis, his investment, his project, his portfolio and the team he'd always dreamt about, his now jewel in the Premier League crown. How close were Chelsea to going out of business when Bates dug a pound out of his pocket and offered salvation.

What about Roman Abramovich though? What are we to make of this mysterious, secretive and silent man, a man who refuses to speak to the media. never does interviews and simply sits on high in his director's box with a kind of smug detachment from events below? What can be going through this rather curious, enigmatic Russian's mind? He reminds you of a Roman- what a comedian I'm not- emperor surveying the gladiators about to engage in combat.

Maybe this deserves closer scrutiny because those who study human behaviour may find Abramovich to be a complete puzzle. There is a sense that maybe he's not really interested in the game as such and would much rather be doing something else. Admittedly he does smile and he does high five with his friends and family when Chelsea do win League titles. But there does seem to be a lack of real emotional engagement in the game itself.

We may never know why he is so reluctant to open up to anybody about his true feelings because nobody has ever heard his voice. Accusations of arrogance and self centredness may well be swiftly dismissed but you do wonder what may be going through the man's mind. Here is a multi billionaire with a team who have just won the Premier League for the third time this decade and still he places the most irritatingly impenetrable barrier around him. Come on Roman what have you got to hide.

Years and years ago old First Division chairmen were happily co-operative and forthcoming figures who sat in the directors box, hat on their head and  cigar smoke blowing from their pipe. Now though there sits a man with a bristly beard who, from time to time, laughs and smirks because somebody has just cracked a joke in his presence. Nobody for a minute would deny that Abramovich derives a genuine enjoyment from watching Chelsea. It just seems that if Chelsea were to encounter a major crisis and a dramatic change of fortune the Russian would walk away, take out the plug and run away with the money sprinting into the far distance where nobody could find him.

Still Chelsea have now won the back the Premier League title they must have thought they'd temporarily loaned out to Leicester and Abramovich can now put his feet up, set sail on that huge, ornately furnished yacht of his, pour himself  the most satisfying glass of vodka, and sail away into a handsome, honeyed sunset. This is what life is all about for this remarkably distant man. a man with an almost buttoned up reticence, of very obviously hidden emotions and almost inconsolable solemnity when the results go against Chelsea.

And so it was that the Stamford Bridge floodlights sputtered out, the Chelsea village and harbour the most scenic backdrop of any Premier League club and mission accomplished. Amid all the wild celebrations in the Chelsea dressing room, manager Antonio Conte must have quietly afforded himself a private pat on the back. For a manager so highly regarded and honoured by his peers this must have been a moment to sit back, kick off those designer Italian shoes, knock back a glass of chianti and just bask in his moment of glory.

For the entire season Conte has been a football writer's delight. Excitable- for the right reasons- animated, emotional, demonstrative, at times uncontrollable but then quietly modest, there is nothing pompous and self righteous about Conte just a man with a simple desire to win every trophy that can be won.

The body language is gloriously self explanatory. Conte loves black, dresses in black but never thinks darkly about football. Conte, it seems just loves football, being involved at the heart of football, throwing his whole body into the game, breathing the game, sniffing its fine bouquet, enjoying the acclaim and then diving into the crowd because he wants to share whatever they may be feeling. You can hardly blame him and yet for long periods of Chelsea's 4-3 win over Watford, Conte still punched his fists in frustration whenever Watford kept scoring. If only perfection were possible but it wasn't.

Towards the end of last night's game against Watford, Conte's black jacket, black cardigan, black tie- or so it seemed- and black shoes had no respite. Conte was all flailing arms and fingers, perpetual motion, annoyance never far away but still a twinkle in his eye when Chelsea completed their 10th 58 passing movement of the evening. Chelsea were playing the football that every team in the world should play. It was football of the most breathtaking simplicity, football that should always be played this at any level and forever more.

When the Kings Road had emptied itself of its overjoyed Chelsea supporters, an Italian man with dark, swarthy features must have walked back to his office, looked back at his supporters streaming away into the London night and thought such moments in a managerial career simply don't get any better. I wonder what must have been going through the mind of a certain Ken Bates. See, I told you I'd get it right one day. And he did.