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| Such was the pace set by Manchester United and Arsenal at the top - between them they lost just one game after Christmas - that there was almost no room for error, however. When a two-goal home lead over Leicester was surrendered in the final seven minutes following that draw on Teesside, it felt like our chance of going all the way was lost; confirmed the following Sunday following a turgid goalless draw against Sheffield Wednesday which came on the back of a Cup Winners' Cup semi-final exit at the hands of Real Mallorca. |
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| A little over a month after that victory Roman Abramovich bought the club and our financial turnaround was well and truly complete, and the run-in before ensured Champions League football would be part of the new Chelsea era from the very start. |
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| 2006/07 'Sometimes when you win a lot of things, the moment you lose is because you didn't give everything, the commitment and ambition is not the same. You lose mental competitive qualities. That is when you have to blame yourself and the players - and this season was the opposite of that. People gave even more because in those seasons there were no real problems and we were winning, winning, winning. |
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| 2009/10 A couple of dips in form earlier in 2009/10 ensured we would have to wait until the final day of the league season to see if we would be crowned champions for the first time in four years… |
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| 'We don't need to look at anybody else's result and this has been our philosophy for some time now,' said Ancelotti of his table-toppers. 'We just need to win our own games and stay at the top.' Three points were picked up at home to Stoke and away to Liverpool, before an 8-0 thrashing of Wigan 'showed we deserved to win the title', in the words of Frank Lampard. |
Attention then turns to a season that ended in last-day drama in 2003 as we again hunted down a precious Champions League position.
Three tilts at the title complete the selection, the 'closedown', as Jose Mourinho deemed it after the brilliant 2004/05 campaign, the exhausting and eventful end to 2006/07, and the near-perfect climax to 2009/10.
1998/99
First up, we travel back 15 years to a Chelsea side that had discovered some impressive and, at the time, unfamiliar consistency under the stewardship of player-manager Gianluca Vialli…
We had gone top of the table on Boxing Day in the midst of what was then a club record of 21 unbeaten games in England's top flight; it was also the longest unbeaten run that season by any team in Europe. But that Christmas success at Southampton was marred by a knee ligament injury to one of the season's best players, Gustavo Poyet. Our injury list was lengthened by the long-term absence of strikers Pierluigi Casiraghi and, in the new year, Tore Andre Flo.
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