After finishing third in the league table last season, Chelsea will be expected to challenge for the Premier league title in the upcoming season. Many have made Manchester City as the favourites to win the title, but Chelsea will be strengthening substantially during the transfer window. As a result, the blues are expected to fight all the way in the coming season. Manager Jose Mourinho, though, reckons that it will be a very tough title race once again. Chelsea lost the title last season primarily because of not getting points against teams at the bottom of the table.

Defeats against the likes of Crystal Palace and Sunderland proved too hard to take for the men from West London. After having already brought in Cesc Fabregas at a cost of £ 28 million from Barcelona, Chelsea are expected to take their spending further by signing Diego Costa. Once again, there is expectation that several names will depart Stamford Bridge in the off-season. Mourinho maintained throughout last campaign that Chelsea were not going to be contenders, but he expected the blues to challenge from the start in this campaign.

However, he appears to have backtracked on those comments, as he suggested that other rivals will also be improving and it will once again be difficult to win the title. “Next season will be very, very difficult, even more so than last. I know Chelsea will be better, but maybe the other teams will be better too, so it will again be the kind of league where you don’t know if you’re going to finish first or finish sixth. In this moment I have to think and feel and say we want to finish first,” said Mourinho.

The Chelsea boss also stressed the need for rebuilding after almost 10 years of constant success with one single team.