A decade ago, Chelsea finished 10th in the Premier League — and then, under a new manager, became champions of England the very next season. Now, after ending last season in that same 10th position and with Xabi Alonso arriving as head coach, the question hanging over Stamford Bridge is whether history can repeat itself.
A familiar starting point
The numbers are striking in their similarity. Chelsea's 2024-25 Premier League campaign finished with almost identical statistics to their 2015-16 season under interim manager Guus Hiddink — the same goal difference and just two more points. That year, they trailed champions Leicester by 31 points and finished below the likes of Southampton, West Ham, and Stoke.
What followed was one of English football's great turnarounds. Antonio Conte arrived, switched Chelsea from a back four to a back three after a 3-0 defeat at Arsenal in their sixth game, and the side won the next 13 matches in succession. They ultimately claimed the title with 93 points — 43 more than the season before, the largest single-season points increase by a title winner in Premier League history.
Alonso could follow a similar tactical path. His Bayer Leverkusen side won the Bundesliga unbeaten in 2023-24 playing three at the back, and a formation switch at Chelsea this season is not out of the question.
The bar is lower than it used to be
Improving by 43 points again would be an enormous challenge — but Chelsea may not need to. Arsenal's winning points tally last season was the second-lowest to claim the Premier League title since Leicester did it a decade ago. The era of 90-plus-point champions that defined the Guardiola-Klopp years — when even 97 points proved insufficient in 2018-19 — appears to have passed. A more modest improvement could be enough.
Better than their position suggests
Chelsea's 10th-place finish last season masked a more encouraging underlying picture. By expected goals metrics, they were the fourth-most dominant side in the Premier League — dropping only to fifth when penalties are excluded. The real problem was finishing: Chelsea scored just 58 goals against an xG of 66.3, a shortfall of more than eight goals, with only Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton Wanderers performing worse in front of goal.
Much of that under-performance was concentrated in a brutal five-game stretch in March and April under Liam Rosenior, when Chelsea took 73 shots worth 5.5 xG without scoring once in the league — their first such run in 114 years. Rosenior was dismissed shortly after. A repeat of that extraordinary slump seems highly unlikely.
The no-Europe advantage
Chelsea will play no European football this season, which brings its own benefits. Among the so-called Big Six — Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur — nine sides since 2010-11 have entered a season without European competition. All but one finished higher in the league, moving up five places and collecting 16 more points on average.
The most dramatic example remains Conte's Chelsea, who won the title. But Liverpool also came within two points of their first Premier League crown in 2013-14 after finishing seventh the season before, taking 23 more points in the absence of European football. Last season, Manchester United — albeit from a far lower base of 42 points — added 29 points to finish third.
Alonso has done this before
Perhaps the most compelling reason for optimism lies in Alonso's own record. He took over at Bayer Leverkusen in October 2022 with the club in the relegation zone and guided them to a sixth-place finish that term with 50 points — the same tally Chelsea recorded in both 2015-16 and last season. In his first full season in charge, Leverkusen added 40 points to win their first-ever Bundesliga title without losing a single game.
Only two clubs in Premier League history have finished outside the top three one season and won the title the following year: Leicester in 2015-16 and Chelsea a season later. For Chelsea to join that exclusive company a second time would be extraordinary. But with a squad that performed better than their ranking suggested, a congestion-free schedule, and a manager who has already engineered one of European football's great resurrections, it is far from impossible.
