Chelsea Eye Title Repeat Under Alonso After 10th-Place Finish
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- Chelsea finished 10th in the Premier League last season with 50 points — the same points tally and goal difference they posted in 2015-16 under Guus Hiddink — before Conte's side won the title the following year with 93 points.
- Xabi Alonso arrives at Chelsea with a blueprint mirroring Conte's, having taken Bayer Leverkusen from the relegation zone to an unbeaten Bundesliga title in 2023-24, improving their points tally by 40 — three fewer than Conte's 43-point jump with Chelsea.
- Chelsea's underlying numbers suggest they were the fourth-most dominant side in the Premier League last season based on expected goals, though they underperformed by 8 goals (58 scored from an xG of 66.3), with only Crystal Palace and Wolves finishing worse.
- Liam Rosenior's tenure ended after Chelsea lost five successive league games without scoring for the first time in 114 years, taking 73 shots worth 5.5 xG across that run in March and April without finding the net.
- History favors the Blues: of the nine Big Six sides to go without European football since 2010-11, eight finished higher the following season, averaging 16 more points — Liverpool gained 23 points in 2013-14 and Manchester United added 29 last season.
- Only Leicester (2015-16) and Chelsea (2016-17) have ever finished outside the top three in one Premier League season and won the title the next — a feat that would be 'remarkable' to repeat, the article notes.
Why it matters: Chelsea's setup mirrors the exact conditions that produced their last title — same finishing position, same points tally, same new manager, and Alonso has already proven capable of the kind of transformation Conte pulled off. With the Premier League's title bar lower than the Guardiola-Klopp era (Arsenal's winning total last season was the second-lowest in a decade), the 43-point improvement Conte engineered may not even be required.
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