Former Blue Damien Duff praises Jose Mourinho and believes Chelsea will be stronger next season

Much of the talk ahead of the new Premier League season will focus on the title contenders and who could pose Chelsea with the biggest challenge after walking away with the title this year. Damien Duff believes Chelsea will win back-to-back titles again.

"Duffer" played a pivotal role in Chelsea's Premier League success in 2004/5 - 2005/6, the first time we had won back-to-back titles in our history under Jose Mourinho the first time around.

Speaking recently, Damien Duff has praised Jose Mourinho but believes that no-one will ever beat Sir Alex Ferguson's record of 13 League titles.

He said: “We had just won the title in 2005 and were all made well aware that it was job done and we had to move on to the next season.

“That was how it was. You cannot go on ­living off one success. So I expect Chelsea to be better again next season. They will ­improve again.

“Under Mourinho, the reality is that no player can afford to take their foot off the gas or lose a bit of hunger, because they will be out of the door.

“You can’t afford to take it easy. Jose is very good at recruiting and always makes sure he gets hungry players in his squad.

“When you work with the man, you can’t help but be on your toes 24-7. He is superb at every aspect of the job, recruiting, motivating and coaching his players. He has the respect of the dressing room. And not every manager I have worked under has had that in my experience.

“Just look at his CV. He has won everything as a manager.

“Jose really is the top guy. I have worked with a lot of top managers in my career – and a few sh*t ones – but without a doubt Jose was the best boss I ever played ­under.

“He ticks all the boxes. He gave the best ­training sessions, the best team talks and his training sessions were the best. Everything he did was the best.”

Will Chelsea become a dominant force?

Chelsea will be just as good, if not better, this time around. So long as Mourinho is there, Chelsea will be strong. But to say they will be the dominant force for years and years, I am not so sure.

Man City will always be strong and Man ­United will buy again. Arsenal, ­especially after their FA Cup win, will be confident of pushing on and mounting a real challenge for the title. There will always be two or three teams up there with them. ­Liverpool cannot be discounted either.

With so many clubs having access to hundreds of millions of pounds to spend on players, no team will ever get their own way for too long in the modern game.”

Compared to 2004/5 and 2005/6 our game has changed and the biggest change is the TV money in Football. That's why we see the massive amounts of monies being spent by all clubs in the league because the Premier League is so, so important now.

Duff is right. I cannot see Chelsea maintaining a period of dominance because other sides will throw money at their projects to try and catch us up. I guess it all depends on FFP and how other sides manage their finances now.

You do have to say that the likes of Arsenal and Manchester United will have an advantage because of the size of their stadiums but hopefully Chelsea can take a step forward with that having revealed plans for talks to improve the stadium to 60,000 this week.

One thing is for sure. Chelsea held a distinct advantage over our nearest rivals last season and each of those sides have a lot of catching up to do which as Duff says, gives us the advantage again this time around.

Chelsea will be strong and improve again and under Jose Mourinho have to be installed as title favourites before a ball is even kicked!