This is what happens when there is too much talk of little horses, third place and next season.

Chelsea’s title challenge fizzled out in desperately disappointing fashion in the spring sunshine. Lack of belief did for them more than Liverpool or Manchester City ever could.

In Belgium, they would probably be champions by now. The Jupiler Pro League contains 16 teams, and the top six at the end of the regular season split to hold a round-robin title play-off.

That would suit Chelsea down to the ground.

The elite they can handle; it’s the also-rans that have ruined their season. West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace, Sunderland, now Norwich City — Chelsea have dropped 15 points against some extremely ordinary teams since January. It is not a case of dull football or managerial negativity, either.

Chelsea simply lack the wit and spark to undo a tight defensive formation. Liverpool and Manchester City have more fantasy, so find a way through. Chelsea are perfectly equipped to do a job against a good team on the counter-attack as they showed at Anfield seven days ago.

Watching them try to overcome the two banks of four and five laid out by Norwich yesterday was at times painful, however. It wasn’t for want of trying — Chelsea hit the woodwork twice, had three good penalty appeals rejected and forced at least one outstanding save from John Ruddy — but there was a feeling that the home team were unconvinced that this could be their season. So it proved.

Even after defeating Liverpool, Jose Mourinho still spoke of third place. And Chelsea played like the third-placed team yesterday. They are only a point behind Liverpool and Manchester City this morning, but that could be a gap of four by Wednesday night, and it feels like more.

Manchester City put seven past Norwich at home, Liverpool five. Chelsea played them in different circumstances but, nonetheless, this was a weak way to end the season at Stamford Bridge.

Defeat would have seen Norwich relegated, so after last week’s spineless display at Manchester United, Neil Adams set his team out not to lose. Defensively, they were outstanding, heroic in the fruitless way that typifies many doomed teams.

They showed the backs-to-the- wall courage that has been missing for so much of the season. Had they played this way earlier they would not now be one Sunderland win — maybe a Sunderland draw — away from relegation.

Norwich had a late breakaway through Robert Snodgrass thwarted by Gary Cahill, and a very strong penalty appeal in the first half rejected by referee Neil Swarbrick — he had a nightmare, to be frank — but did not ever do enough to look like saving their skin.

Chelsea were the better team and on unjustly denied penalties alone, it should have been 3-1. Missing the odd important foul is human error; missing four could be a sign of cataracts, particularly when all could have been called in real time with the naked eye.

The sole mitigation would be that Swarbrick was following the play when Michael Turner stopped and brutally bodychecked Demba Ba’s run in the fifth minute.

The ball was wide on the left when Ba was taken out in the middle, but one of the squadron of assistants, at least, should have spotted it.

At the other end after 11 minutes, Norwich had so many penalty shouts in the space of two seconds it was as if Swarbrick was overwhelmed and gave nothing at all.

Ashley Cole might have taken Martin Olsson out but if he didn’t John Terry most certainly did.

Play was waved on, much to the frustration of Adams and the Norwich bench. The manager complained bitterly after the game, conveniently forgetting that Swarbrick more than evened up his incompetence by the end of the game.

Alexander Tettey on Andre Schurrle was a definite penalty in the second half, and Eden Hazard had more than a claim after 58 minutes, when team-mate Branislav Ivanovic was booked for what can only be described as extreme incredulity.

Hazard was going on another jinking run when Norwich’s Ryan Bennett took a wild swing at a clearance. Indeed, so bad was Bennett’s attempt he missed the ball, and the player, a defensive air shot that succeeded only in making Hazard fear for his kneecaps.

He took evasive action, jumping in the air, and was clattered by Bennett’s upper body in mid-swipe. At first it looked as if he had been booted skywards, but replays revealed the truth. In avoiding the follow-through, Hazard had collided with his man. Technically, he wasn’t kicked, but as Bennett’s abandon left Hazard with no choice but to desert the ball, it is hard to see how this wasn’t a foul, full contact or not.

Take this to its logical end and a defender could make a fist and go to throw a punch at an on-rushing forward and as long as he didn’t deliver the blow, it would be fair game if he flinched and fell over.

Chelsea had the best of the chances in open play, including two efforts denied by the woodwork. For the first, Schurrle cut inside from the left and hit a low curling shot which struck the far post.

Immediately after half-time, great skill from Hazard found Ivanovic, forwarding the ball square to David Luiz, whose shot hit the bar.

There were other opportunities, Luiz over at the near post, a shot from Hazard that forced a fine full-length save from Ruddy, a header from Terry that could have been better directed; on a different day one of these opportunities would have gone in and Chelsea would have led the Premier League table going into the final week of the season.

That they fell at this innocuous hurdle, however, is symptomatic of their problems all season, and Mourinho is too shrewd not to appreciate this.

We may have witnessed the end of an era at Chelsea, Ashley Cole’s tears as the players embarked on that modern phenomenon, the lap of appreciation, perhaps signified a summer of change. If so, it could be expensive and ruthless and, next season, no suckers will be getting an even break.

—Daily Mail