Chelsea Are Setting The Standard In The EPL This Season

After recent seemingly easy victories over experienced opponents some people are already tipping Chelsea to not only win the league but perhaps remain unbeaten doing it.

Chelsea have been a firm fixture in the top flight of football since their 1955 league championship victory but it’s only in the last couple of decades that they’re really become a force to be reckoned with and the currently partnership of Abramovich’s money and Mourinho’s flare on the field means that they’re already heavily favored to take the English Premier League title this season. If it pans out as the bookies predict that’ll add a fifth league title to their collection of 7 FA cup wins.

Chelsea Could Remain Unbeaten This Season

• 25/1 offered by Bet365 on Chelsea staying undefeated

• Mobile betting on the EPL popular

• Chelsea already five points clear in the league table

The first Chelsea team played in 1905 in the converted athletics stadium they still call home at Stamford Bridge, Fulham, and by their second season had won promotion to the First Division although they didn’t stay there long. Bouncing between the divisions for a while they reached the FA Cup final for the first time in 1915 but were unfortunately beaten by Sheffield United, and their best placed finish in the league by 1920 was only third.

If their success was patchy their following wasn’t, with the team attracting huge London crowds who came to see their big name signings, and they would eventually be rewarded when in 1952 the former Arsenal and England player Ted Drake took over as manager. His new broom swept away a lot of the baggage holding the team back, and his vision invested in the future of the club at youth level and in the nature of his signings from lower down the league.

His was the first Chelsea side to win the league championship, however this performance proved difficult to replicate in subsequent seasons and eventually Drake was replaced with Tommy Docherty. Again their performance improved hugely but despite winning the League Cup in 1964/65 they seemed destined to forever be more a bridesmaid than the bride, losing a string of semi finals, that was only put to rest when Dave Sexton took over and in 1970 won the FA cup and then in 1971 the UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup against Real Madrid.

The Modern Era Of Chelsea

Many of us wish to forget the eighties, the music, the shoulder pads, the big, big hair, but Chelsea have more cause that most. Nearly relegated to the 3rd division after poor performance, trouble with a hooligan element amongst their fans and the sort of financial shenanigans over the ownership of their stadium that almost left them homeless. If it hadn’t been for a market crash that bankrupted the property developers that had acquired it Chelsea probably would have lost Stamford Bridge.

With the club’s home secure the results on the pitch became more salient and a series of managers attempted to change the teams fortunes with perhaps Ruud Gulliet as player manager being the most notable amongst them winning the FA Cup in 1997. This was, it is often argued, the moment when Chelsea put their past behind them and took up their rightful place as one of the top teams in UK. Certainly their subsequent results show a marked improvement.

Titles and trophies littered their next few seasons with their on-field a success cited as a reason the billionaire Roman Abramovich bought the club for 140 million GBP. The manager at the time was Claudio Ranieri and even with 100 million GBP spent on new players he was unable to win any trophies for the new boss, who promptly sacked him bringing in the current manager, Jose Mourinho who gave him back to back league championship wins in 2004/5 & 2005/6, the FA Cup in 2007 and two league cups along the way.

Mourinho’s leaving and later return are just part of the Chelsea rollercoaster ride and that’s one of the reasons they were the sixth best supported EPL team in 2012/13 and regularly get attendances of over 40,000 at their home games. They’ve expanded their financial support network somewhat beyond merely their owners pockets with an array of sponsorship deals that include Coca Cola, Audi and a deal with the Sauber F1 team that sees a Chelsea crest covered car charge around motor racing circuits across the world.

Are Chelsea Running Away With The 2014/15 season?

This season Chelsea have raced away into a five point lead over their nearest rivals Manchester City with six wins and a draw from the seven games played thus far, and that’s set the online gambling sites in the UK, like Bet365, alight with speculation that they might be able to remain unbeaten this season. Indeed if you’re a brave Blues fan you can get a rather interesting 25/1 on them doing so. Of course with 31 games of the season remaining one might have to be a full blown Shed-Head to take them up on it.

If that seems a bit of a stretch, but you still like a bet on sports in the UK, then what about 3/1 that they’ll remain unbeaten at home, or just 2/1 that they’ll win the league. Given their early league and the dire performances of some other big names (Manchester United I’m looking at you) that’s probably quite a good bet, but anything could happen between now and the season’s final matches. One thing is for sure, Mourinho has brought back the magic, as well as Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas.

Costa is 5/6 favorite to be the leading scorer this season with a rather nice 8/13 available on his getting more that 24 goals this season, and 6/5 that he’ll not score that many. Sergio Aguero is four goals behind and 4/1 to be lead scorer, but Costa is a tough act to follow for anyone and it may be asking too much of the Argentinian to keep up. Chelsea might even have a hard time keeping up with itself.

Success has lead to a plethora of matches in Europe that may mean the man himself, Mourinho has to mix and match teams a little lest his blue clad boys run out of steam towards the end of the season which would almost certainly lead to gambling news headlines as bookies the length and breadth of Britain breathe a sigh of relief. That 25/1 shot on them staying unbeaten might seem a bit outside now but if they do well against Spurs, Liverpool and Man United expect to see it shorten considerably soon.