Can Chelsea Win the Premier League & the Champions League?

Chelsea have had a rollercoaster campaign last season but they managed to end it in the most beautiful fashion, beating Manchester City 1-0 in the UEFA Champions League final. They barely managed to secure the top-four finish in the Premier League and lost the FA Cup final to Leicester City. Of course, the Champions League trophy makes it a fantastic season in general, but can Chelsea’s fans for even greater achievements in the 2021/22 campaign? Numerous reasons point us towards the positive answer to this question, and we have analysed this in depth with the help of John Pentin, senior content editor at newjerseysafebetting.

The 2020/21 Summary

If we go back to the summer of 2020, we'll remember that it was the period of rebuild period at Stamford Bridge. The transfer suspension finally ended by then and Roman Abramovich showed how much he missed the market. The Blues were by far the most active team in Europe (in terms of big signings) last summer. They’ve signed the likes of Timo Werner, Hakim Ziyech, Thiago Silva, Ben Chilwell, Kai Havertz, and Edouard Mendy. While the team got off to a fairly nice start to the season, things fell apart in January when Frank Lampard had to give his place to Thomas Tuchel on the bench. The former Chelsea midfielder was sacked after a run of only two wins in eight Premier League games. 

Tuchel made an immediate impact, going on a run of 13 straight games without a defeat across competitions. He then eliminated the likes of Manchester City in the FA Cup semifinal and Real Madrid in the Champions League semifinal before beating Pep Guardiola's machinery once again in the most important game of the season (The UCL final in Istanbul). Despite losing to Aston Villa on the final day of the Premier League campaign, Chelsea managed to finish inside the top-four as Leicester City fell at home to Tottenham Hotspur. 

The Start of the 2021/22 Season 

The appetites rose in and around Stamford Bridge as Chelsea entered the new season. The Blues began it with a UEFA Super Cup trophy, beating Villarreal on penalties. The fans heard much better news the next day when the club announced the signing of Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian superstar returned to Stamford Bridge after seven years and after a brilliant spell in Inter Milan whom he guided towards the Scudetto title last season. 

Big Rom made his new debut in a Chelsea shirt in the second round of the Premier League against Arsenal. He left a spectacular impression, scoring the first goal in a commanding 2-0 victory over the London rivals. 

Chelsea then completed the squad by signing Saul from Atletico Madrid on the final day. They’ve lost the likes of Olivier Giroud, Tammy Abraham, Tino Livramento, and Kurt Zouma in this summer transfer window, but the general consensus is that the squad is much stronger than in the last season merely by a massive Lukaku move. 

The Blues kept on marching in the Premier League with wins over Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur before suffering the maiden loss of the campaign, 0-1 at home to Manchester City. The defeat was paired with the Champions League slip up to Juventus (the same 1-0 scoreline) in Turin as Thomas Tuchel received the initial warning signs in the early stages of the season. 

Can Chelsea Challenge Man City and Liverpool in the Premier League? 

Based on everything we’ve seen at the beginning of the season, it is fair to say that Chelsea are among the closest contenders for the Premier League throne. Even the bookmakers see them as bigger favorites for the title than the likes of Liverpool at this point. Manchester City are still labeled as the main contenders, but even Pep Guardiola’s men have already had slip-ups (a 1-0 defeat at Tottenham on an opening day and a goalless draw at home to Southampton later on). 

Big depth in the squad is Guardiola’s main strength and it will no doubts play a big role in the latter stages of the season, but Tuchel also has a wide variety of extremely talented players in his ranks all over the place. The German manager can count on at least two high-profile players in every single position in his team, something that was not quite the case in the previous seasons. 

This is, after all, why we’ve seen so many rotations made by Tuchel and Guardiola at the beginning of the season. For example, Liverpool do not have such depth and that is clearly the main reason why bookmakers and experts see Chelsea as a closer title contender than the Reds. 

PSG & Bayern Munich as the Main Threats in the Champions League

While we can hardly speak of the likes of Manchester United or Tottenham Hotspur (especially) as additional threats to Chelsea's Premier League ambitions, the range of competitors for the European throne is much wider. Manchester City and Liverpool are both there, but if you add the likes of PSG and Bayern Munich to the mix, you can easily understand why it is so tougher to expect the Blues to repeat the last season's success on the continental level. 

According to the bookmakers, Chelsea are the fourth candidate for the UEFA Champions League trophy, behind the likes of PSG, Manchester City, and Bayern Munich who are all given equal chances of lifting the trophy at the end of the campaign. The Blues should easily get through the group past Juventus, Zenit, and Malmo, and then it's anyone's game in the knockout phase, much like it was in the previous term of the competition. 

Who says that this Chelsea team can’t beat any other side in the world over two legs or in a single-game final? Thomas Tuchel has high-quality players all over the squad, a talismanic striker in Romelu Lukaku, and the last season’s experience. Are Chelsea favorites to win both Premier League and Champions League? No. Would we be surprised if they win both competitions? Absolutely not.