Whether we win the title this season or not, I think it's worth a reminder of just what a difference a year makes...below is how the table looked just over a year ago after we'd drawn at home to Everton...down in 14th and relying on last minute equalisers at home from JT to give us something to celebrate. We already have 27 more points having played a game more...eight more than Leicester had at this stage, who also had played a game more than we have now...the turnaround is as dramatic as our horrific decline after winning the title in 2015...

I just think it's important we appreciate what's happening, whether we finish top or not...last season was horrendous, but having another taste of the kind of results and season I grew up with 20-30 years ago, it certainly makes you enjoy the good times even more, if possible

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35270645

We never had a bad squad. What a difference a manager makes. Not disrespecting Jose but Conte has a way of handling our players and 3-4-3 seems to work just fine.

A surprising no mention of Jose in the OP. Like evissy I don't want to disrespect him and don't want to turn this thread into one about him, but it was a rotten situation that he probably has to hold his hands up to for a large part, removing him from the situation improved things dramatically I'd say before the hard work started.

Having said that take nothing away from Conte, he's got everything right more or less bar the first few weeks, what he has got out of Alonso and Moses impresses me the most.

As a younger Chelsea fan, the whole experience of last season has definitely helped me appreciate our overall successes much more. Up until last season, probably the worst I had experienced was the run in the 10/11 season when we won something like 2 in 10. I thought it couldn't get much worse than that and in a way, I was taking the glory for granted, as if we had some sort of right to it. Last season was a real eye opener, I realised that success won't come every season for us. It also helped me appreciate the clubs history a little bit more; I'd often read about the Chelsea teams which struggled in the First Division and suffered relegations without actually understanding it. I always thought "Nah that wouldn't happen today, we're too good for that". How wrong was I!

Last season was basically the horror season I expect to happen every year. All of my pessimism coming true at once. So football finally made sense to me last year.

At least it's out of my system now i've finally been proven right 

1 hour ago, Zeta said:

Last season was basically the horror season I expect to happen every year. All of my pessimism coming true at once. So football finally made sense to me last year.

At least it's out of my system now i've finally been proven right 

We still did a league double over Arsenal though and stopped Spurs title challenge so it wasn't a total bust 

agreed, hilarious that we still did the aussie soap on the gooners when we were rubbish

I remember when Jose returned and i thought at the very very least we wouldn't have "bad moments" to the extent of Carlo's second season and the last days of AVB but he turned out to do eclipse both and pay tribute to us in the 80's. I think Hiddink deserves praise for his work when he came in, yes results could have been better and he looked a shadow of the genius that rocked up in 2009 but people underestimate how mentally damaged the squad was, his man management gave Conte a group of players in a much better frame of mind and we all know what's happened since.

8 hours ago, evissy said:

We never had a bad squad. What a difference a manager makes. Not disrespecting Jose but Conte has a way of handling our players and 3-4-3 seems to work just fine.

100% agreed

Italian managers and Chelsea are the best mix.........Luca Vialli, Di Matteo and not forgetting the God Father part 1 ...and now we have God Father part 2 !!!!! 

I've always liked the Italians mentality ( mentality is a word Luca Vialli used to use a lot in press conferences, when talking about his players) .......fight to the death and win !!