5 reasons why Chelsea will not retain their EPL crown

After Chelsea’s opening day defeat, everybody is fearing the worst for the reigning champions of England. Antonio Conte has stated how hard this season will be and has made it clear that Nemanja Matic, who just yesterday received a lot of praise on his debut for Manchester United, will be a huge loss.

Last season, having only domestic competitions to compete in, and the team coming under only a small amount of criticism at the beginning, everything was easy going for Chelsea and Conte. However, this season will certainly not be easy for Chelsea.

Here are five reasons why Chelsea will not retain the Premier League title this season:

5) Champions League

Chelsea this season have to compete in the Champions League, which will mean many more games than last season. It’s not like Conte or his players have no Champions League experience, but more games could certainly mean more injuries and most definitely more fatigue.

The last two Premier League winners have had just the Premier League and domestic cup competitions to compete in, giving them a week to recover on most occasions. This allows players to recover from knocks quicker and they’re much fresher by the time the next game week comes around.

This clearly worked for both Leicester City and Chelsea with both having a small amount of injuries all season. Additionally, they was also able to field a similar starting 11 week in week out, which helps boost confidence, morale and team spirit with the same players repeatedly playing together.

Chelsea are likely to be in the running for a top four place, but with a rather thin squad especially in centre midfield, their team certainly cannot compete for the title and play in the Champions League this year.

4) Premier League teams' history of title defense

Chelsea won back-to-back titles under Jose Mourinho - but that was a decade ago

It’s very uncommon for teams to win two Premier League titles consecutively. Jose Mourinho won consecutive titles from 2005-07, but only he and Sir Alex Ferguson have ever done it in the Premier League.

Ferguson won so many titles consecutively by being one of the best football managers to have ever graced the game and when Chelsea won consecutive titles before, in Mourinho’s first two seasons in England, Chelsea were by far the biggest spenders.

Now, Manchester United and Manchester City are the biggest spenders, meaning it will be especially hard this season to go back to back, in comparison to Ferguson’s or Mourinho’s achievements.

It is extremely difficult to win a Premier League title once, let alone winning it in two consecutive seasons, especially Conte’s first two seasons at the club. He is an excellent manager, but to win back to back titles is something quite special in the Premier League.

3) Loss of Costa and Matic

Diego Costa is still a Chelsea player, but will be considered a loss as it’s unlikely he will play this season. Additionally, Matic, a two time Premier League winner, has also been sold, to team up with previous boss Jose Mourinho at Man United.

This is two extremely important players who were instrumental to their title success who will not be a part of this season. Conte has made it clear that losing Matic was a ‘huge loss’, suggesting he clearly wasn’t pleased about the sale.

Additionally, Costa scored 20 league goals last season, the most by any Chelsea player, emphasising how big of a miss the Spaniard will be.

Conte may have brought in Alvaro Morata, but with him potentially needing time to adapt, it would have been ideal to have kept Costa for at least one more year. Similarly, the Blues have brought in Tiemoue Bakayoko to replace Matic, but his talent is still quite raw and he will need time to adapt, especially coming back from injury.

Losing these two players who were a big part of Chelsea’s spine last year is certainly going to mean they will drop more points this season.

2) Hard opening fixtures

Chelsea will face Tottenham Hotspur this weekend

Burnley was one of Chelsea’s easiest opening fixtures, and having lost that, the early part of this season may be very difficult for them with the games they have coming up.

They have to face Tottenham this weekend, before also playing Everton, Arsenal and Manchester City before the end of September. This is along with tough trips away to Leicester and Stoke in what is a really difficult start for the champions.

If they’re to lose to Tottenham, they will have 0 points from their opening two games and will be low on confidence. But the hard games do not end there.

They then have to face Everton a week later, who will be eager to take advantage of any Chelsea weaknesses, before an away trip to Leicester and a home fixture against Arsenal.

These games are hard even when the team is playing well, but if the team is struggling, the beginning of this season will only get worse for the Blues.

1) ‘This will be the most difficult season of my career’

Conte told the media how difficult he believes this season will be

This is what the Blues boss told the media when asked what he thought about the season ahead at the beginning of August. If Conte himself isn’t confident about a positive defence of their title, it doesn’t look good.

It seems the Italian is angry at the sale of Matic and possibly at the fact that he hasn’t been able to bring in as many players as he would have liked. He knows that with Manchester City and Manchester United spending so much, it will be difficult to compete for the title.

Normally in the media, managers are usually positive and state how they’re happy with the progress in pre-season and that the team is ready.

Therefore, for Conte to say what he has, and for the team to lose their first game at home to Burnley, the situation at Chelsea mustn’t be good. If things continue the way they’re going with Conte being seemingly unhappy and the team playing as poorly as they did in the opening game, it could be a long season ahead for Chelsea.