Chelsea’s dominance turned the Premier League title race in to an afterthought for the final couple of months of the soccer season and while it’s easy to credit their success based on talent alone, there were many more factors that played in to their champion season at home. Here is a look at four biggest reasons why Chelsea won the Premier League title this season.
Jose Mourinho’s Key Offseason Additions
Unlike some of his rival managers, Jose Mourinho did an absolutely excellent job of identifying what his club needed the most and went out and got it this summer. All of the talk about Mourinho’s disappointing return to Stamford Bridge a year ago only fueled the fire even further. It was clear from the outset that he believed the lack of a top goal scoring striker and creativity in the midfield were his team’s two biggest issues, and he wasted little time addressing both. Mourinho addressed his team’s issues up front with the signings of Diego Costa and Didier Drogba, with the former coming through as one of the Premier League’s leading scorers this season while the latter has had no issue being the club’s top striker off the bench. Mourinho wasn’t done there, though, as he addressed his midfield by bringing in Cesc Fabregas as the creative veteran to pair with the defensively sound Nemanja Matic and provide the Blues with a tandem that fit his system perfectly in the middle. No team did a better job of addressing their areas of weakness from a year ago and Mourinho deserves all of the credit in the world because of it.
Incredible Depth From Top To Bottom
If an incredibly unfortunate injury were to take out Chelsea’s world-class goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, they would simply replace him with another top keeper in Petr Cech. When players like Costa or Oscar were out, there were players like Drogba, Matic, Fabregas and Eden Hazard there to help carry the load. It seemed as though regardless of where an injury or two had taken out a key player, the Blues didn’t miss a beat. Mourinho did an excellent job of identifying the perfect fits for his system and filling in the holes and there is no denying the overall talent and depth of this Chelsea roster.
Consistency From Start To Finish
By the time the Blues are officially crowned as Premier League champions, they will have broken the record for most days spent on top of the table and most consecutive days spent on top of the table in one season. Chelsea has been either tied or alone at the top of the table since after the second round of games and while they have been fortunate to largely avoid major injury scares all year, Mourinho and his players deserve credit for how consistent they have been from start to finish. A group of core players that includes Costa, Hazard, John Terry, Branislav Ivanovic and Gary Cahill has been excellent and the Blues deserve a ton of credit for the work they have done as a team.
Lack Of Consistency Elsewhere At The Top Of The Table
For as consistently dominant as Chelsea has been throughout the year, it’s amazing to look at the levels of inconsistency displayed by some of the other top Premier League teams. Manchester City appeared to be the Blues top competition as late as February but has since fallen to 13 points behind for second in the table. Meanwhile, Arsenal and Manchester United both recovered from terrible starts to make a charge for Champions League spots and while United appears to have hit another bump in the road of late, they are fortunate enough that Liverpool has also been far too inconsistent all year.
Another rough stretch has kept them four points back of United for fourth in the table. In a season dominated by inconsistencies at the top of the table, it was Chelsea that dominated as the Premier League’s most consistent team from start to finish. While they would have probably locked up a title anyways, the stretches of poor form that other teams have shown throughout the year has completely taken away any potential for a title race over these final two months of the season.
