Premier League Betting: The Betfair Contrarian on why Chelsea won't win the Premier League

Premier League / The Betfair Contrarian / 12 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Frank Lampard won two Premier League titles under Jose Mourinho but he won't be making it three this year, according to The Betfair Contrarian.

"Jose Mourinho is the only manager in Premier League history to have won the title in his first season with a club. His success wasn’t that surprising considering he had just guided Porto to their first and only ever league and Champions League double, while Manchester United had just suffered their worst ever Premier League campaign. The Special One also had history of making an immediate impact, winning the title in his first full season with Porto and going on to do the same at Inter last year."

It was only a matter of time before The Betfair Contrarian felt the need to rubbish Chelsea's title credentials. Here are his views on why there won't be a celebration parade down the King's Road come May for yet another year.

With Manchester United losing Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez this summer, Chelsea have emerged as [3.0] favourites on Betfair to win their first title in four years. The Contrarian is unmoved by talk of a renaissance at Stamford Bridge, however, and prophesises another season of underachievement. Here's why a combination of bad omens, old age and new manager Carlo Ancelotti will further delay chief executive Peter Kenyon's plan to turn the world blue.

Winning the Community Shield was a bad omen...

Chelsea took the first trophy of the campaign by beating Manchester United on penalties in the Community Shield but nothing positive should be read into that result. Excluding United - who are immune to the curse - just one of the last 12 winners of the traditional curtain raiser has gone on to win the title that season.

...and the same applies to the FA Cup

The Blues' FA Cup triumph at the end of last season was supposed to signal that they are back to their best and ready to mount a serious title challenge. The reality is that nobody since Arsenal's "Invincibles" have won the title the season after lifting the cup. Over the last 19 years just three FA Cup holding teams have been crowned champions the following year: Manchester United (1996-97 and 1999-00) and Arsenal (2003-04). None of Chelsea's four previous cup victories were followed with league success and after two of them they failed to even finish in the top five.

New managers don't win the title...

Jose Mourinho is the only manager in Premier League history to have won the title in his first season with a club. His success wasn't that surprising considering he had just guided Porto to their first and only ever league and Champions League double, while Manchester United had just suffered their worst ever Premier League campaign. The Special One also had history of making an immediate impact, winning the title in his first full season with Porto and going on to do the same at Inter last year.

...and Ancelotti isn't the man to change that

Chelsea's new manager might have an impressive European track record, having won the Champions League four times in the last 21 years, twice as a player and twice in the last seven seasons as a coach but his domestic record is very ordinary. Carletto spent a combined ten seasons in charge of Juventus and AC Milan - the two most successful teams in Italian football history and winners of 13 out of the 15 scudetti contested between 1992 and 2006 (although Juventus were later stripped of the last two). However, in his decade in charge of both clubs Ancelotti won Serie A just once, with Milan in 2003-04.

Age IS an issue

The average age of the team Chelsea fielded in the Community Shield was 28 and the youngster of the team, 22-year-old John Obi Mikel could be benched when either Joe Cole (27) or Yuri Zhirkov (25) are fit. The average age of seven of the last ten title-winning teams (using the pre-season ages of the 11 players who made the most starts) was 26.9 or lower, while none of the champions had an average higher than 27.2. Ironically, the two youngest title-winning sides of the last decade were the Chelsea champions of 2004-05 and 2005-06, so youth clearly played a key part in the success.

99-00: 25.9
00-01: 25.7
01-02: 26.5
02-03: 25.9
03-04: 27.1
04-05: 24.9
05-06: 25.5
06-07: 27.2
07-08: 27.2
08-09: 26.9

Chelsea Shield side: 28