Chelsea Are Premier League Champions, But Where Do They Rank Among The Best?

“Boring Boring Chelsea” their supporters chanted with sarcastic glee. Chelsea wrapped up their 4th Premier League title in the last 11 years, the third under Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho.

It was quite tellingly that it was assured with a one nil victory and perhaps even more so following Floyd Mayweather’s pragmatic victory over Manny Pacquiao in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

So where does this league victory rank among the best?

Chelsea was easily the best team in England this season; their ability to control and kill a match is by far a strength that no other team in England has at the moment. This is a notable feature of Jose Mourinho’s teams along the years.

However, Chelsea was helped by the lack of competition. However, that’s not to say that Chelsea were not great. This Chelsea team could go on to dominate the Premier League yet again — and perhaps even Europe — but Chelsea ran a race where their closest rivals simply shot themselves in the foot.

The result made for a completely dull Premier League season, especially in comparison to last season’s schizophrenic title race. Unfortunately, that was Chelsea’s downfall when history dictates the legacy of this title-winning team.

Chelsea’s greatest rival was ultimately themselves in a league that was still hungover from the roller-coaster ride of the 2013-14 season, where we saw the four likely league winners.

Rarely have we seen teams completely dominate the league. Indeed, the last team to do so was Manchester United in Sir Alex Ferguson’s farewell season. That team is still considered by many as the worst Manchester United team assembled by Ferguson, much less to win the league.

A more likely comparison would be the title-winning team assembled by Jose Mourinho in the 2004-05 season, where he amassed a record 95 points. The team won the Carling Cup in an epic final against Liverpool and went as far as the semi-final, losing to eventual champions Liverpool in another epic battle.

Perhaps even that comparison might even be a disservice to this Chelsea team. While they didn’t wow fans across the world, they had their moments of magic throughout the season. It was through no fault of their own that the team didn’t have any great rivals to push them to that next season.

To Jose Mourinho and Chelsea, it will not make a massive difference where they rank among the best as long as the silverware is in the cabinet. However, this Chelsea was robbed of their place in history due to the lack of a competitor, an overlying storyline that could be retold to generations to come.

Unfortunately, this Chelsea team will just be a footnote in history.

[Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images]