With the 2024/25 season now well underway, things are looking pretty rosy for Chelsea.
Enzo Maresca has got the Blues playing winning football again, and a solid start in the Premier League suggests that a top-four finish – if not a title challenge – could be in the offing.
That would be a satisfactory outcome for most Chelsea fans, who have become accustomed to lavish spending on new players in recent years without the requisite rewards out on the pitch.
Things certainly appear to be moving in the right direction… and who knows, maybe that will lead to a Premier League title push sooner or later.
Chelsea last won the EPL in 2016/17, but it was the 2014/15 campaign – in which Jose Mourinho’s men also lifted the League Cup trophy – that perhaps lives on longest in the memory.
In the midst of the tenth anniversary of that famous season, let’s take a look back at some of its highlights.
Kings of England
Having finished third in the Premier League table a season prior, expectations were high ahead of the 2014/15 season.
Pre season brought with it upheaval, with Romelu Lukaku, Ashley Cole, Demba Ba, Samuel Eto’o and Frank Lampard – Chelsea’s all-time leading goalscorer – all following David Luiz through the exit door.
In came Cesc Fabregas – what a masterstroke of a signing that would prove to be – alongside other successful newcomers in Diego Costa and Thibaut Courtois, while Didier Drogba was brought back to provide his unique power and poise largely from the substitutes’ bench.
And little did Blues fans know it, but this would also be the final full season at the helm for Jose Mourinho, who would leave the club in December 2015.
Even accounting for such upheaval, Chelsea could not have wished to get off to a better start in their domestic campaign, with four straight wins and a whopping 15 goals scored – the 4-2 and 6-3 wins over Swansea City and Everton respectively, with Costa netting five times, the early highlights.
The good times kept on rolling, and the Blues wouldn’t taste defeat in the Premier League until December 6 – Newcastle United claiming a 2-1 win at St James’s Park. But by that time, Chelsea were six points clear at the top of the table with a formline that read W11 D3 L1.
The Christmas and New Year period were not kind to Chelsea, as a 1-1 draw was followed by a 3-5 hammering at the hands of Tottenham; Mourinho had never conceded five goals in a Premier League game until this point.
As the last strains of Auld Lang Syne rang out, Chelsea had lost their lead at the top of the table. But no matter: they then embarked on a remarkable unbeaten run between January and April, winning eleven of their next sixteen games.
By the time the Blues lost for the third and final time in the Premier League in 2014/15 – unexpectedly too, at the hands of West Brom, they had already claimed the title: having opened up an unassailable 16-point lead at the start of May.
It was Chelsea’s fifth First Division/Premier League title, with Eden Hazard named Premier League Player of the Season and Mourinho winning the equivalent award for best manager.
Trophy Time
The Premier League trophy wouldn’t be the only one taking pride of place in the cabinet at Stamford Bridge in 2014/15.
There were hopes of Champions League glory after the Blues blitzed their way through a group containing Sporting Lisbon, Schalke and Maribor: four wins from six, with a goal difference of +14, saw them top the pile.
A quirk of the draw paired Chelsea with PSG in the last 16, and they played out a titanic 1-1 draw in the first leg in Paris.
Sadly, that’s where the journey would end: a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge, with Thiago Silva – of all people – equalising in extra time, saw PSG through on away goals.
The less said about the FA Cup the better! Chelsea beat Watford in the third round, but then suffered humiliation at the hands of Bradford City in the fourth: taking a 2-0 lead, the Blues would somehow conspire to lose 2-4.
And so it was left to the League Cup to provide Blues fans with double delight. Bolton Wanderers, Shrewsbury Town and Derby County were seen off in the earlier rounds, before a tough draw saw Chelsea land Liverpool in the semi-finals.
The first leg at Anfield ended 1-1, and a goalless second game saw the tie head into extra time.
And while there was despair against PSG, this time it was joy unfounded as the Blues booked their berth at Wembley courtesy of a Branislav Ivanovic goal.
Waiting in the final were Tottenham, but Chelsea were in no mood to be denied. Two of their best players during the 2014/15 season – Costa and John Terry – were on the scoresheet as the Blues hoisted their second trophy of a tremendous campaign.