How Did Chelsea Win Their First Premier League Title? [And How Good Were Chelsea Before 2004?]

The 2004/2005 season of the Premier League was nothing short of astonishing for Chelsea football Club. Not only did they break an insane amount of records, which we will definitely be getting into in detail a bit later on, but they also reclaimed the top spot in English football for the first time since 1955, and for time ever in the Premier League era.

And while some may feel as though the way that they went about it was not the most noble (flash money & Abramovich) you’d be surprised to know that regardless of this, Chelsea were a team that was quite clearly on the rise even before this season happened.

Removing everything that happened off the pitch from the equation, everything on the pitch was quite simply ruthless, calculated and near perfection, if I’m honest.

But none of that really matters without going into just how they managed to accomplish this feat, among others.

Which brings us to the question of the day, how did Chelsea win their first ever Premier League title?

Before we address the 2004/2005 season itself, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a brief look into the seasons prior to it, to get an understanding of how Chelsea got to this point in the first place.

Let’s start things off with Chelsea in the early 90s.

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Chelsea in the Early 90s

Up until 1992, before the Premier League even began, Chelsea were a pretty underwhelming team for the most part. Up to that point, their last and only top division title triumph in the club’s history came in 1955, where they won the English first division.

However, other than that, they didn’t really ever come close, finishing as high as third once or twice, but mostly spending their time in and out of the first division due to multiple relegations and promotions to the lower leagues and back.

This takes us all the way through to the inaugural premier league season in 1992. If you were expecting anything to change simply due to the fact that the name of the top division changed, you’d be wrong.

Although Chelsea did find a bit more stability, avoiding relegation and establishing themselves permanently in the top division, they were pretty much the definition of a mid-table side.

Chelsea in the late 90s

That is, of course, up until about 1997. In the 1996/1997 season, Chelsea finished in 6th place, their highest ever position in the Premier League era, by some distance, really.

This upturn in form was due to a few reasons. The main reason for this are as follows:

Glenn Hoddle, who was the manager of Chelsea between 1993 and 1995, was offered the English national team job and ended up leaving the London club.

As a result of this, Chelsea appointed Ruud Gullit, who had only been at Chelsea for a year prior to this, as their player manager. At the time, Gullit was 33 years of age.

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At this point in Gullit’s career, he was undoubtedly a highly successful, seasoned professional, and also had some experience in managing different personalities through captaining the Netherlands to the UEFA Euros in 1988, for example. However, his ability to manage his fellow professionals from a coaching perspective was yet to be tested.

Despite this, in his very first season with the club, they achieved their highest ever finish in Premier League and won the FA Cup, their first piece of silverware in 26 years!

This also made Gullit the first foreign manager to win a major trophy in England, as well as the first black manager to win a trophy in England. Legendary stuff right there from the Dutchman.

Another factor worth noting is that the mid nineties was actually around the time that several high-profile foreign players and managers were beginning to enter the Premier League en mass. Such players include, but are not limited to Ruud Gullit, himself, Dennis Bergkamp and Gianfranco Zola, who entered the Premier League in 1995, 1995 and 1996 respectively.

Gullit’s tenure as Chelsea manager is actually cited by many as one of the largest contributing factors to the massive influx of foreign players in the Premier league.

Over the next few years, Chelsea began to incrementally improve, slowly climbing the Premier League ladder. In addition to this, more silverware followed, as they won the European Cup winners’ cup in 1998, their first continental trophy since they won the same competition in 1971.

Unfortunately, this very same season coincided with the sacking of Ruud Gullit, due to a reported heavy fall out with the Chelsea board halfway through the season.

Ironically enough, Gullit was replaced by the Italian, Gianlucca Vialli, who also took on the role of player manager for Chelsea. The irony in this is that Vialli was one of the many foreign imports that Ruud Gullit brought in as part of the quote unquote “foreign revolution” at Chelsea.

Fun fact. in 1998, Vialli became the youngest manager to ever win a UEFA competition, at 33 years and 308 days of age. However, this record was broken by Andre Villas-Boas, 13 years later in 2011, after he won the Europa league with Porto at 33 years and 203 days old.

Bonus fun fact, shortly after winning this competition, Villas Boas became the Chelsea manager. But let me not get carried away here. Back to the story at hand.

Chelsea in the Early 2000s

In the early 2000s, Chelsea continued on their upward trajectory and made shrewd acquisitions in the transfer market. They brought in players that turned out to be key squad members in the seasons that followed, and won more silverware, such as the FA Cup in 2000.

Players that were brought in included, but were not limited to Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank, Eiður Guðjohnsen and Jesper Grønkjær. That last name may not ring a bell for some but take note of it. It’ll come up again very soon.

Following the FA Cup win in 2000, it was Vialli’s turn to experience the sack at Chelsea, leaving after only spending 2 years as their manager. Vialli was reportedly sacked mainly due to falling out with the players, rather than the ownership.

His successor was then Graham Rix, who took over as the Caretaker for only 4 games, until Claudio Ranieri eventually took over as the permanent manager.

Now, I’m guessing that you’re starting to see a pattern here. Renieri arrived at Chelsea on the 17th of September in 2000 and went on to spend just under 4 years at the club, leaving in June of 2004.

Pause right there. If you’ll entertain me for a few moments, I want to give you guys a bit of a quiz. Since Chelsea Football club was formed in 1905, I want you all to guess how many Chelsea managers have stayed at the club for 4 consecutive years or longer.

Don’t worry I’ll wait.

Okay, that’s enough waiting. Out of the 38 managers that Chelsea has had in their over 115-year history, only 7 have remained employed at the club for more than 4 years, with a whopping 23 only staying for 2 years of shorter.

^{Chelsea managers that spent 2 years or less at the club}

So, I guess this goes to show that Chelsea’s reputation for being a club that runs through managers is nothing new in the slightest.

During Ranieri’s reign as the Chelsea manager, the club didn’t manage to win any silverware whatsoever. However, one of the main reasons that he even kept his job was due to the very visible improvements that the club were going through in the league, in particular.

Between 2000 and 2003, Chelsea’s finishing positions, in chronological order, were 6^th, 6^th and 4^th. Further to that, the amount of points that they won in each season incrementally increased. From 2000 to 2003, they earned 61, 64, 67 point, all in succession.

The Billion Pound Goal

Seeing as this is an article on Chelsea’s incredible rise to stardom, it would be negligent if I didn’t mention quite possible the most important goal in the history of the club.

On the final match day of the 2002/2003 season of the Premier League, Chelsea and Liverpool were neck in neck and battling it out for the final Champions League spot. They were in fourth and fifth place, respectively, with both having earned 64 points over the course of the season. Chelsea were ahead on goal difference, so they only needed a draw to ensure qualification.

Now, this may not be common knowledge today, but back then, it was no secret that Chelsea were in a dire financial position from well before this season began, having taken on massive debt to fund player and stadium development over the years.

Things were tight.

So much so, that if Chelsea failed to qualify for the 2003/2004 Champions League, it was very possible that the club would have ended up in financial ruin going into administration.

However, it’s important to note that qualifying for Champions League alone may not have solved their problems. They were in a very sticky situation.

Coincidentally, a certain Russian Billionaire had just made the trip to London in search of a football club to purchase. In steps, Roman Abramovich.

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As the story goes, Abramovich was actually initially keen on Tottenham Hotspurs becoming his property. However, after catching wind of Chelsea’s financial position, as well as the final matchday showdown at hand, he stopped to pay attention to the outcome.

The game got off to a rather undesirable start for Chelsea as they went 1-0 down due to a Sami Hyypia goal within 11 minutes. However, they equalised through Marcel Desailly, and took the lead through a goal scored by Jesper Gronkjaer, resulting in a final score of 2-1.

Chelsea went on to qualify for the Champions League and shortly after the end of this season, Roman Abramovich purchased the club for £142 million pounds, in June 2003. This takeover undoubtedly saved Chelsea from going out of business, really.

In reality, Chelsea only needed a draw to qualify for the Champions League. And perhaps, they still would’ve been bought if the score line remained tied. However, Gronkjaers goal all but confirmed Chelsea football club’s future and in turn, led to Roman Abramovich putting over 1 billion pounds of his own funds into the club between 2003 and 2020. Hence the name; the billion-pound goal.

To this day, many believe this to be Chelsea’s most important goal in the clubs history. And it’s not hard to see why.

Speaking of ludicrous amounts of money, in Abramovich’s first season as the owner, Chelsea spent over £120 million, signing 14 new players.

These purchases included several players that were already household names around Europe, such as Claude Makélélé, Damian Duff, Hernan Crespo and Sebastian Veron.

In the 2003/2004 season, Chelsea achieved their highest ever Premier League finish, and their highest top division finish in 49 years.

They finished in second place and were only bested by Arsenal’s Invincible side that went the entire season unbeaten. Kinda hard to top that, to be fair.

Despite this rapid improvement, Ranieri was sacked by Chelsea at the end of the 2003/2004 season. The reasoning for this being that Chelsea and Abramovich were aggressively looking to conquer England and then Europe. As evidenced by the massive financial investment from the new owner. Unfortunately, Ranieri was not seen as the man that could realise this dream for them.

Regardless of how things eventually turned out for Chelsea, you really have to feel for the guy. He steadily improved Chelsea throughout his time with them, nurturing players such as John Terry, Frank Lampard and many more, as well as coaching them to Champions League football while they were in financial turmoil.

In a very big way, Chelsea owe their successes in the years that followed to Claudio Ranieri.

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Speaking of the seasons that followed, seeing as Chelsea’s ambitions as a club completely changed almost overnight, they were in the market for a manager that could match that energy.

Right on cue, in steps a young Portuguese manager that had just come off a Champions League winning campaign with Porto.

Jose Mourinho Arrives

When Jose Mourinho arrived in England, there was a certain swagger about him. Never had the Premier League seen a personality like his before.

From the very first moment that he was unveiled to the public as Chelsea’s new manager, he immediately caught the attention of football lovers across the world. In doing so, he also uttered those famous words that would end up following him for the rest of his career. And for good reason too.

In his first press conference as Chelsea manager, when asked about the Chances that Chelsea had to succeed under his management, as well as how he faired in comparison to other managers in the Premier League, this to say:

“Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one”.

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What’s that? I’m sorry, that wasn’t enough to convince you of the fiery personality that had just entered the fray? Well how about this; When Mourinho heard that Claudio Ranieri, his predecessor to his current job, was questioning whether a manager from the Portuguese League could make the leap to Premier League football, he simply said:

“I heard that and I suggest if one of you is Mr Ranieri’s friend or has his number you should call him and explain to him that for a team to win the European Cup it has to beat many teams from many countries.”

And of course, he wasn’t wrong. On the way to the Champions League title, Porto had to beat Manchester United, Lyon, Deportivo La Coruna and finally Monaco in the final.

He’d reached the pinnacle of European football, dominated the Portuguese domestic League for two seasons straight and had the trophies to show for it.

But the question remained. Could he do the same in England?

2004/2005 Title Winning Season

And that brings us all the way through to the season we’ve all been waiting for. Quite the Journey we’ve been on today, right? I know some of you may have thought we wouldn’t get here. But here we are; the fabled 2004/2005 season of the Premier League.

Before this season even started, Abramovich and Chelsea were up to their old tricks again. They spent an additional £95 million on 9 new players for the first team. You could just tell that something big was coming.

So, first things first, before Mourinho arrived in England, Chelsea, as well as most of the Premier League, played in the 442 formation.

Upon the Special one’s arrival, he switched their formation to a 433, pulling one of the strikers into the midfield and pushing the wide midfielders up the pitch in more attacking roles.

The effect of the extra midfield is essentially what made all the difference for Chelsea. Being able to crowd the midfield, ensuring that your players always have passing options and they are able to hound the opposition when out of possession, was a large part of what made this team so formidable.

With that in mind, let’s get into the players that made this possible for Chelsea. It’s important to note that Chelsea did shuffle the squad quite a bit this season and didn’t really stick to one set starting 11. So, I’ll be going through more than 11 players here. Just a heads up.

Let’s start things off with the Goalkeeper, Petr Cech.

Petr Cech

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One of the many new boys brought in at the beginning of this season. The Cech republic international gained Chelsea’s attention after putting in some very solid performances while he was still playing for Rennes in Ligue 1. He wasn’t particularly good with his feet, as many goalkeepers are nowadays, but he was an immense shot stopper, managed the defence in front of him and rarely put a foot wrong throughout the entire season.

Ricardo Carvalho

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Next up, we have Ricardo Carvalho at Centre Back. Another one of the newer acquisitions. Carvalho essentially followed Jose Mourinho to England, as he was a part of Mourinho’s Porto team from the previous few seasons.

In addition to that, he won the UEFA Club Best defender award during Porto’s Champions League winning season. Based on this alone, you know he was the real deal.

Carvalho was quite a smooth operator in his prime. He had it all, tackling ability, aerial prowess, a decent turn of pace and to top it all off, great ball control and passing ability.

This truly set him apart from most other centre backs in those days. Unlike in today’s game, being capable of playing the ball was not really a requirement for the centre back role. Particularly in the Premier League. Therefore, Carvalho was truly a different breed.

John Terry

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Now onto the Captain himself, John Terry. Going into this season, Terry was the longest serving Chelsea player in the starting line-up, having been at the club since 1995 when he was still in the youth academy. Unlike Carvalho, Terry was more of a traditional English defender.

Tough, uncompromising, no nonsense.

However, what set him apart was his superb game intelligence, anticipation and leadership. He was never the most athletic or technical player around, but his skill set, in combination with the Ricardo Carvalho’s skill set, was insanely effective.

Paulo Ferreira

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At right back, Paolo Ferreira was the first choice. Just like Ricardo Carvalho, Ferreira followed Mourinho from Porto to Chelsea. And seeing as he was already accustomed to the manager’s style of play, he had no problems settling into life at Chelsea.

Having been converted from a right midfielder to a right back by Mourinho when he was still at Porto, Ferreira was already proficient in attack. Things were no different when it came to defence. A solid player, all round.

William Gallas & Wayne Bridge

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At left back Chelsea had two players that occupied this position. Wayne Bridge and William Gallas. Bridge was the only specialist left back of the two, with Gallas naturally being a centre back.

However, due to a nasty ankle injury in February of 2005, Bridge had to sit on the side-lines while Gallas played out of position as the emergency left back.

This didn’t seem to be a problem, as Chelsea continued their fine form in his absence. When fit, Bridge was a dynamic, tireless fullback great in both attack and defence.

Gallas was more of a pure defender, as evidenced from his preferred position being CB, but he was still very capable of getting forward and even scored some very important goals for Chelsea.

Claude Makélélé

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Now onto, in my humble opinion, the most important player in this Chelsea team at the time. Claude Makélélé.

After being bought from Real Madrid in 2003, Madrid bought David Beckham from Manchester United. The Madrid players were less than happy about this.

When speaking on Beckham coming in and Makélélé leaving, Zinedine Zidane even said, “Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?”.

As previously mentioned, one of the benefits of the 433 is that it allows for an extra man in the midfield. This essentially made the role that Makélélé played in this team possible.

As the deepest and most central player in the midfield 3, Makélélé was perfect in the dedicated defensive midfielder position. He possessed unreal positional awareness, great tackling and a crazy work rate.

His efforts massively contributed towards the crazy defensive records that this team achieved. We’ll get into those in a bit.

Tiago

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One of the often-forgotten men from this season for Chelsea. Tiago is another one of Jose Mourinho’s fellow countrymen, who followed him from Portugal to the Premier League.

However, instead of coming from Porto, Tiago came from Benfica. I guess after being part of the Benfica side that came second to Jose Mourinho’s Porto side, he figured, if you can’t beat em, join em. Not a bad decision, in hindsight.

He was a versatile player, capable of playing as a central midfielder or filling in at DM. Another very solid player this season.

Frank Lampard

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Not much I can say about Frank Lampard that you haven’t already heard. Chelsea’s highest goal scorer in the club’s history, as well as the only midfielder in the top 10 scorers in Premier League history. Not only that, but he has the 4^th highest number of assists in Premier League history too.

But the man wasn’t just about goals. He could do it all. Defend, attack, lead. Saying that this man was an unreal talent is an understatement.

Joe Cole

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Here’s a crazy fact for you. Out of the 23 new signings that Chelsea brought in in the 1-year period before this season began, only 4 were actually English. And out of the 4, only 2 became first team regulars: Wayne Bridge and Joe Cole. But we’ve already spoken about Wayne Bridge.

Joe Cole was an insanely talented player, capable of playing in just about any forward position. Quick, strong for his size, and highly creative.

Personally, one of my favourite players to watch in those days.

Damien Duff

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Undoubtedly another forgotten man from this legendary team was Damien Duff. After coming through the ranks at Blackburn Rovers and helping them achieve promotion to the Premier League, Chelsea activated the release clause in his contract in 2003.

A very versatile winger capable of playing on either flank to great effect. Although he was hindered by the odd injury or two in his career, the Irishman had a very solid season.

Arjen Robben

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Seeing as Arjen Robben has reached such incredible heights in his career and played virtually everywhere, I get why it’s easy to forget that he was part of this Chelsea team.

Robben was only 21 at the time that he moved to Chelsea from PSV in 2004, but the trickery, the flair, the speed, the goals. It was all there, even this early in his career.

Eiður Guðjohnsen & Didier Drogba

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Money really is a cheat code, isn’t it? Imagine you’ve got an upcoming match; you take a look at the team sheet and see all the players that I’ve just mentioned. No one would blame you if you went straight into panic mode right there and then.

But wait, there’s more. In the Centre Forward spot, Chelsea had their pick of either Didier Drogba or Eiður Guðjohnsen.

Although Drogba was more of an out and out striker and Gudjonhnsen was a bit more versatile throughout this season, and really throughout his entire spell at Chelsea. He played in several positions; as a striker, a second striker, a winger, even as a midfielder in the midfield 3, on occasion.

Although, I guess their playing positions didn’t really matter. As long as they were on the pitch, goals were just about guaranteed.

2004/2005 Season Overall

So now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, this is how they lined up.

This was pretty much their most regular starting line-up. However, as I said before, rotations and substitutions were used frequently, meaning that many other players were used as well.

The backline remained pretty much consistent throughout this entire season. Terry and Carvalho proved to be a very good pair, and both fullbacks were consistently solid in both attack and defence.

I really can’t stress enough how crucial Makélélé was to this team. He acted as an incredibly solid screen for opposition attacks and offered the defence ample protection.

As I’ve already said, this position, like most of Chelsea’s squad, was considered to be quite foreign in the Premier League at the time. Therefore, it took some time for the rest of the league to figure out how to counter it.

Duff and Robben were the first-Choice wingers in this squad, with Cole pretty much filling in when needed. That’s not to say that Cole didn’t get his fair share of game time, though. Robben and Duff both suffered injuries at varying points throughout the season, meaning that Cole definitely got his fair share of playing time.

Joe Cole would also sometimes be used as one of the midfields three, utilizing his aggression and work rate to good effect.

The left winger and the right winger, depending on who was on the pitch, would frequently switch flanks to keep the opposition fullbacks pressured and add some dynamism to Chelsea’s attack.

As I’ve already said, Drogba and Guðjohnsen had great competition for the lone striker position, but it wasn’t uncommon to see them both on the field at the same time, with Guðjohnsen playing deeper.

This season saw them score 10 and 12 goals, respectively, in the league.

However, the top scorer award went to none other than Frank Lampard, who found the back of the net 13 times overall in the league.

All in all, these players combined to form one of the most potent teams to ever grace the Premier League.

Not only did they win the competition, but they also broke several records. Amongst the most notable records they broke were the following:

They finished with the highest points total in Premier League history, with 95 points. This record was only broken over a decade later, by Manchester City in the 2017/2018 season.

They kept 25 clean sheets and they conceded only 15 goals the entire season. 15. Remember that a single season has 38 games. Both of these records still stand today.

Oh, and I don’t even think I’ve even mentioned it yet, but Chelsea also won the League cup this season.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that this team was nothing other than phenomenal.

Did Chelsea buy the Premier League Title?

Now, you’ve probably seen this question being asked here and there and to be fair, it is valid. And seeing as it is a valid question, it deserves a well thought out, in depth answer. Something to really get you thinking and give you a fresh perspective of the nuances that a question such a this has to offer.

So. Did Chelsea buy the Premier League title?

Yes. Yes, or course they did. I mean, is it really a question at this point? Yeah. The answer is yes.

Ok, but all joking aside, let’s take another look at all the players I’ve just spoken about. Remember, these were the most featured players in Chelsea’s first ever Premier League winning season.

10 out the 14 players in this list were purchased during or after June of 2003, when Abramovich bought the club, costing over £132 million pounds in total. I mean, even the manager had only been at the club for a single season.

Let’s also keep in mind that since the takeover, Chelsea spent over £215 million overall just on players. The ones I’ve mentioned above are just the ones that worked out.

On top of all of this, Chelsea also constructed a new £20 million training facility following the takeover that undoubtedly helped to elevate the game of these players.

However, with all of this being said, let’s not discount Chelsea’s achievement this season.

Let’s not forget, professional football isn’t only a sport. Contrary to popular believe, and no matter how much you think this is ruining the game, football is also a business at the end of the day.

All that Abramovich did here was buy a business that was on the brink of failure and turn it into one of the biggest entities within in its industry. That’s pretty good business, if you ask me.

And that’s not even taking into consideration the human element here.

It’s one thing to bring together a group of star players. It’s a whole other thing to actually win with them. What Mourinho and Chelsea did throughout this season is still an incredible achievement, in my opinion.

After 2005 season

Speaking of the club’s turnaround and how they grew into an industry powerhouse; as we all know, Chelsea pushed on to achieve even more success in the years that followed.

Winning the Premier league yet again in the 2005/2006 season, becoming only the second team in Premier League history to ever accomplish this feat, with the other team being Manchester United.

They solidified their position as one of the top dogs in English and European football and even got their hands on the Champions League trophy in 2012.

They did, however, keep some of their old traditions going, sacking managers left right and centre whenever their performances dipped. However, this is understandably a consequence of their own success and a reflection of an owner that does not deal well with failure.

But if I’m honest, this business model clearly works for them. And with the way the club is run, I fully expect them to achieve more success for many years to come.

Closing Thoughts

And there we have it. A brief trip down memory lane to the very first time in the Premier League era that Chelsea unequivocally blew the competition away. (I swear that wasn’t intended as a pun).

Roman Abramovich and Jose Mourinho’s Blue Army.