Let's raise a glass to victorious Chelsea but they're far from vintage champions

Dan Jones
10 May 2010

Jolly well done Chelsea. That's the first and the honourable thing to say. Despite the thumping finale, this has been a tense, nervy, squeaky-bum sort of a season. Great for those of us who like high drama and title races with barely a strand of dental floss to pick between the contenders.

Not so great, I imagine, for any of the participants, who presumably have to sleep at night.

So to win 8-0 on the final day of the season, on an occasion when other teams would have settled for a buttock-clenching 1-0 grind, was very impressive. It emphasised Chelsea under Carlo Ancelotti have added style to their Mourinho-era grit, even if the shadow of the Special One continues to linger.

Chelsea performed their Premier League coup de grace with lethal ease. They shed blood along the road to fame. But is this a team to remember? Or, put it another way, is this a vintage Premier League-winning team?

The first question to ask is: how the blazes do you measure a Premiership vintage? In other fields of artistry and endeavour, there are strict rules. Take cars. Is your 1960s E-Type Jaguar a vintage automobile? No, it's ruddy well not. It wasn't built between 1919 and 1925 (or 1931, depending which nerd you ask). So it doesn't count. Likewise: guitars. Is your splendid Gibson Les Paul Sunburst a vintage guitar? Well, only if it's an edition now out of production. Otherwise it's just another axe. Jog on. (I'm not going to go into wine, because a) it's too complicated; b) this is a football column; and c) I'm sure I've already irked car and guitar geeks sufficiently with the above generalisations.)

So here's my arbitrary measure for a vintage 21st Century Premier League champion. You gotta finish with more than 90 points. The end.

Simple, huh? No judgments for artistic merit or 8-0 trouserings. No goals-to-game ratio or complex ranking system according to the final standings of the teams you beat along the road. It's 90 points or you're not coming in. And by that standard, even given their record goalscoring tally, Chelsea 2009/10 aren't coming in.

Before you start up: yes, I know. Chelsea did everything they needed to. They won. Very often they won in style. They smashed up the minnows.
They won home and away against each of the Big Four (Although I am tempted to relegate Liverpool from that category after a woeful season under the hapless helmsmanship of radged-off Rafa Benitez.) There is no gainsaying any of that.

But Chelsea lost six games and won the Premier League with just 86 points. That tally would not have won them the title in any year of the last decade, save the 2002/3 season, when Man United were champions with 83 points, and 2000/2001, when United also won it, with a decade-low tally of 80. (Chelsea finished sixth that year: behind Leeds in fourth and Ipswich in fifth. Doesn't that feel like ancient history?)

Aesthetic impression should tell you the same as the numbers. This Chelsea side are good but they don't rank alongside the unbeatable Arsenal (90 points) in 2003/4, the indomitable Chelsea (95) in 2004/5 and again (91) in 2005/6, or the rapier United sides of Cantona (92) in 1993/94, of Beckham, Scholes and Giggs (91) in 1999/2000 and of Ronaldo (90) in 2008/9.

So there's the message: B+/A-. Room for improvement. And they have to improve, whether you take to infuriating and arbitrary vintage systems or not. Why? Because United will not take this season's defeat kindly. Because Manchester City will spend like WAGs in an Italian airport this summer. Because Arsenal might even string a season together next year. Because I suspect Liverpool will be crap again but Spurs may well not be. Because whoever wins the 2010/11 Premier League will need to be a 90-point team.

Having said all that, though, let me reiterate: well done Chelsea. Jolly good shout. I do mean it and I don't want to sound totally mealy-mouthed. London has had a splendid year for top-flight football. Fulham charging gloriously to the final of the Europa League.

Spurs getting over that FA Cup semi-final defeat and finishing fourth. And West Ham somehow not being relegated, despite the chairman as-good-as publicly flicking the V's at his floundering manager and the team having one good player (Scott Parker), whose industriousness and verve is entirely outweighed by the occasional presence on the same field of the hilariously hapless Mido.

That leaves Arsenal, who have hardly disgraced themselves in coming third. Not a bad return given their policy of operating as the North London Finishing School For Exceptionally Gifted Nine-Stone Weaklings.

But three out of four of next season's Champions League spots in the bag strikes me as a bumper year for the capital. So well done to Chelsea, for leading the charge, and yah boo sucks the North West, for once. At least until I next have to visit there.