Xabi Alonso targets Premier League title with Chelsea after 10th-place finish
Chelsea will hope new manager Xabi Alonso can inspire a shock Premier League title charge following their dismal 10th-place finish last season.
The west London club find themselves in an almost identical situation to a decade ago, when Antonio Conte won the league immediately after a mid-table finish.
During that 2015-16 campaign, interim boss Guus Hiddink steered the side to tenth place with a goal difference remarkably similar to their current statistics.
Few expected a championship run the following year, especially after finishing 31 points adrift of miraculous title winners Leicester City.
A tactical blueprint for success
The catalyst for that historic triumph was a drastic mid-season switch to a three-man defence following a heavy defeat at Arsenal.
This tactical approach is one the Blues could easily replicate this term under their new Spanish head coach.
The former Liverpool midfielder famously utilised a back three to guide Bayer Leverkusen to an unbeaten Bundesliga crown in the 2023-24 campaign.
Replicating that previous 43-point improvement remains a monumental challenge for the current squad at Stamford Bridge.
Lowering the title threshold
However, the modern benchmark for becoming champions of England appears to have dropped slightly from the relentless heights set by Manchester City and Liverpool.
Arsenal’s winning points tally last season was the second-lowest to claim the crown since Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester side a decade ago.
This suggests the former Champions League winners may not need to reach the 93 points amassed under Conte to mount a serious challenge.
Furthermore, underlying metrics indicate the squad performed much better than their final league position implies.
Fixing the attacking misfires
Expected goals data reveals the side were actually the fourth-most dominant team in the top flight last year.
Their primary undoing was a severe lack of clinical finishing in the final third.
The team scored eight fewer goals than anticipated from the high-quality chances they created throughout the campaign.
Only Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton Wanderers possessed worse conversion rates during the previous Premier League season.
If the new manager can refine this wasteful attacking output, a dramatic rise up the table is entirely plausible.