Chelsea fulfills year-long plan with Premier League title

The seeds of Chelsea’s Premier League title – ordained for most of the season but engraved in sterling silver after Sunday’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace – were planted about a year ago.

Late last season, Chelsea beat Liverpool at Anfield to earn one of its most famous victories in recent memory. Resting big names ahead of the Champions League semifinals, the Blues started only four players who are still with the squad, yet still gritted out a result against a fellow title contender.

The win brought Chelsea within two points of the top of the table with two games to play. The praise was effusive, and everyone was salivating over Chelsea being back in the league title race.

Well, almost.

“No, we’re back in nothing,” manager José Mourinho said after the game. “In this moment we are almost third. … It was a good season for us. There was an evolution in many aspects of this team. And now champions are only one, and the champions will be (Manchester) City or Liverpool.”

It was odd. It was gruff. It was contrarian.

It was also correct.

City ended up winning the league, and Chelsea sputtered after the win at Anfield, exiting the Champions League three days later before a scoreless draw at home against soon-to-be-relegated Norwich City ended any hopes of a trophy at Stamford Bridge.

Mourinho’s mind games, even when it comes to his own team, are well-documented, but this was different. This was no ploy to keep his players hungry. He recognized before anyone else that Chelsea, youthful and therefore prone to stumbles against inferior sides, wasn’t quite ready to be champions again, and he didn’t hide from it.

He also knew that with some strengthening, there’d be nowhere for the rest of the league to hide.

The first wave of upgrades came during the summer transfer window. Mourinho cleared the decks of the aged (Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard) and the ineffective (Samuel Eto’o, Demba Ba), and sold high on the talented but inessential David Luiz and Romelu Lukaku, who together fetched a staggering £68,000,000 on the market.

In their stead, Chelsea added some major firepower. The club lucked out when Arsenal declined Cesc Fabregas’ buy-back option, freeing the potent attacking midfielder to sign with whomever he wanted, and later finalized a long-rumored deal for star striker Diego Costa.

Mourinho further solidified the attack by bringing in Loïc Rémy, a veteran striker who favored a shot at silverware over playing time, and bringing back Didier Drogba, the Blues legend who seemed constantly adrift during two years away from the club.

Chelsea recalled Costa’s Atlético Madrid teammate, stud goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, from a loan deal and signed him to a new contract, while also handing new deals to Eden Hazard, Oscar, Cesar Azpilicueta and John Terry.

The return on the moves proved immense. Hazard was named PFA Player of the Year and scored the title-clinching goal on Sunday. Five others joined Hazard on the PFA Team of the Year. Costa is among the league's top scorers. Terry has had arguably his best season in a Chelsea shirt, and that’s saying something. Courtois helped Terry fortify the defense, which has conceded fewer goals (27) than anyone else in the Premier League.

Chelsea didn’t lose until a December trip to Newcastle, and its last loss was all the way back on New Year’s Day. While other contenders faltered during the taxing second half of the league schedule, Chelsea had the depth and resolve to survive at the top of the table, where it will have spent a Premier League-record 274 days by the end of the season.

Some have complained about Chelsea’s play waning aesthetically, but even that can be ascribed to the team finally learning how to win a title. Not every result is pretty, but every point is, and Chelsea will officially finish with more of them than any other team in the Premier League this term.

“I think last season, we were building already something,” Mourinho said on Sunday. “Some work ethic, some group ethic, some principles, and this season, we had more stability and a few players that we brought here and gave us a few qualities that we didn’t have.”