Is Chelsea as good as they were last season?

Last season Chelsea won the league in spectacular fashion. They grabbed ahold of the title race early, and they never looked like giving up control of the title race. They finished with 87 points, a whole 8 points above second place Manchester City. With a total of 3 losses the whole season, Chelsea was undeniably the best team in the league last season. Three games into the season, and Chelsea’s start can be described as tepid at best. Chelsea’s performance so far early in the season is far from what we’d expect from a title winning team, and so the question is, is Chelsea as good as they were last season?

So far Chelsea hasn’t had as many major transfer moves as the two Manchester clubs. The core of their title winning team remains mostly unchanged with maybe Pedro slotting in for Willian. Outside of Pedro, Chelsea have not signed any major players so far. The only other first team player they have signed seems to be Asmir Begovic, and he seems to be little more than a backup goalkeeper.

When it comes to the starting lineup, Chelsea’s first XI last season was honestly world class, with few teams capable of matching their quality. Diego Costa and Eden Hazard spearheads Chelsea’s brilliant attack. Only Manchester City, with the explosive Sergio Aguero and David Silva managed to score more goals last season. Chelsea’s defence was absolutely world class, capable of holding on to the slimmest of leads. Just look at all the rival fans accusing them of “parking the bus” every season. Add in a world class goalkeeper in Courtois and a very strong midfield, Chelsea’s starting lineup is undeniably world class. I’d argue that at full strength, Chelsea is definitely one of the best five teams in the world at the moment.

Now not to take away from Chelsea’s impressive title win last season, but in my opinion, they were extremely lucky. They experienced few major injuries to their team, and core players stayed healthy all season. Core players such as Ivanovic, Hazard, and Terry started every game for them, and unlike other title contenders such as Arsenal, injuries had a minimal effect on Chelsea last season.

Odds are, Chelsea’s luck will not be as good as it was last season. If everything goes right for them, Chelsea is probably the best team in the premier league, but over the course of a 38 game season, two domestic cups, and Champions League, the odds of “everything going right” is probably not likely to happen.
If the injuries hit (and let’s face it, it’s more when than if), Chelsea is going to get hit hard. Their serious lack of depth will could potentially demolish their title hopes. Let’s actually look at it position by position.

Between the sticks Chelsea has Thibaut Courtois. Undeniably, he is a top goalkeeper, and considering that goalkeepers aren’t often rotated, he will probably start the vast majority of Chelsea’s games. In this transfer window, Asmir Begovic was brought in to replace long time veteran Petr Cech, but since Courtois is probably going to start almost every game anyways, who the backup is isn’t really a big deal. Besides, after Courtois’ red card in the first game of the season, Begovic has filled in admirably and is perfectly adequate as a backup goalkeeper.

The Chelsea back four was absolutely world class last season, when they were probably the best back line in the league. Although John Terry is an aging older defender, I do feel that a back four of Terry, Cahill, Azpilicueta, and Ivanovic forms a very solid back line. However, the departure of Filipe Luis means that the only defender out of the starting four with any first team playing time last season is Kurt Zouma. Zouma is a good prospect, and probably deserves to be a rotation player at Chelsea. But, any injuries would crush the Chelsea defence. Chelsea does not have a single backup fullback, and the other backup centreback is Nathan Aké, who has a total of 12 apps in the last three seasons combined.

On paper, not only does Chelsea have top class midfield, they also have plenty of midfield cover. According to their website, Chelsea has 12 midfielders (including wingers), more than enough depth and cover for course of a long season. However, there are some players in the Chelsea midfield that are probably very difficult to replace. Matic is the lynchpin to the Chelsea defence, and he is pretty much unreplaceable.

But everything I’ve discussed above is mostly based on projections from last season. The season is still very young, but there are certain troubling trends that to me, suggest Chelsea will not be nearly as good as they were last season. If we were to purely judge based on this season, there are some worrying trends.

Chelsea’s world class defence seems to have collapsed early into the season. A 2-2 draw against Swansea, a 3-0 loss against City, and a lucky 3-2 win against West Brom seems to have exposed Chelsea’s defensive difficulties. Terry’s lack of pace got exploited multiple times, and Ivanovic’s poor defending really got exposed this season. Unfortunately for Chelsea, they lack the depth to rotate tired and out of form players.

Chelsea’s tepid start once you consider their lack of depth. With multiple competitions coming up very soon (Capital One Cup, FA Cup, Champions League), their depth and fitness levels will be challenged heavily. For teams like Chelsea with poor depth, the early season with no midweek games and few tired legs is when they should pick up as many points as they can. If four points in 3 games is how Chelsea performs at full strength, imagine how must worse they will inevitably end up when the injuries, suspensions, and tired legs hit and they are forced to play their backups.

Overall, Chelsea is still a very good team. However, unless they make some massive moves in the rest of this transfer window, I just don’t see Chelsea repeating their amazing performance from last season. Will they challenge for the title? Well that’s hard to say this early in the season, but expecting them to run away with the title like they last time is probably not going to happen again.