Chelsea FC: The Blues Will Be 'Invincible' in the 2013-14 EPL Season

Contemporary blogging decorum suggests leading with the boldest statement your article intends to defend. But I guess I am breaking the mold when I suggest that the 2013-14 Chelsea Football Club will walk to a Premier League trophy.

For me that is no bolder than suggesting Arsene Wenger will once again be on the butt-end of more footballing jokes than anyone else in the league.

I don’t only foresee Chelsea winning the league in awe-inspiring fashion, but I expect it. Anything else would come as a shock to me, even entering the final week with the destination of England’s top silverware in doubt.

What I don’t expect, but hope for is something almost unthinkable in the modern game. Something that has only happened once in more than a century and only a handful of times since man first started kicking a ball for organized leisure. But it is not insane to suggest that this Chelsea team will make history with an undefeated domestic season. 

Full disclosure, I am the most torrid and obnoxious of Chelsea fans you will come across: I found the team after the money arrived; I have never been to Stamford Bridge; I refuse to accept the decline of Lampard and Terry; I'm an American; and I was the guy running around after the Blues defeated Benfica, declaring "my" team back-to-back European champs.

With that said, I still don’t think it would be outlandish to see this Chelsea team as not only the best to ever call Stamford Bridge home, but perhaps the best to ever play in England.

For one, the second coming is happening at the perfect time. When Jose Mourinho first arrived almost a decade ago, he built a team of soon-to-be stars.

The likes of Didier Drogba, Petr Cech and Arjen Robben were certainly talented players, but nowhere near the legendary status they have risen to over the years. Even Frank Lampard and John Terry were players on the rise whose mistakes could be excused by inexperience.

This time no such construction of a side is needed. This Chelsea squad is not only full of proven superstars, but young ones who are only projected to trend upward.

Eden Hazard leads a group which features almost half of Belgium’s golden generation. “The Belgian Messi,” as he has been dubbed, seems to be inching toward living up to that nickname every time he takes the pitch, scoring goals and creating more at the most necessary of times.

Hazard will be serving up fellow Belgian and arguably the best goalscorer in the Premier League last season, Romelu Lukaku.

Another bold proclamation? I think not.

Lukaku managed 17 league goals with West Brom last year. It's a paltry sum when compared to the likes of Robin van Persie’s 26 or Luis Suarez’s 23, but the number doesn't account for certain key factors. Let’s not ignore the fact van Persie was being served up by the likes of Wayne Rooney and Antonio Valencia.

Lukaku also averaged a goal every 117 minutes played, while van Persie scored one every 120 minutes. And for all you Spurs fans still slurping the flavor of the month Gareth Bale, he comes in a 139 minutes/goal. Perhaps if Bale didn’t have one of the worst conversion rates in Europe he could bring that number down.

Then, of course, you have the reliable old brass to help these youngsters through the stress of expectations. Every year the media makes a big deal about Chelsea’s inability to part with the past and how it will lead to their imminent implosion. Yet, once again, “over-the-hill” Frank Lampard gets to double-digit goals from the midfield, and that’s the deep midfield. 

Ashley Cole, Petr Cech and John Terry got Chelsea where they are, and though they may not be who they once were, they still seem to get it done. Their “shortcomings” have all been off-field, in relation to a manager who did not trust them, but demanded theirs in return. With someone who respects them as equals and the players respect as a genius, their play on the field will be the only thing that defines them, and history suggests only positive things will be had.

And, oh yeah, Michael Essien is back! 

But it’s not just what is happening in the Chelsea locker room that merits my projection that the Blues will be invincible. It is a rebuilding era for Chelsea’s chief competitors, mainly the clubs of Manchester. 

Both are with a new manager, both are trying to identify what kind of team they will be and both have been the whipping boys of Mourinho’s tactics in the past.

To be fair, I expect both City and United to be formidable opponents. The additions of Jesus Navas and Fernandinho add an element of creativity to City that was lacking last year.

And David Moyes is nothing short of a brilliant manager. He has never spent more than £15 million on any single player, yet has consistently kept his team challenging for European spots in this league. That may be one of the greatest accomplishments any EPL manager has achieved in the last decade.

But the fact still remains that more often than not, coaching changes require time to translate into results, especially when it comes to Moyes. Ferguson’s United and Moyes’s Everton differed tactically in very subtle ways, primarily in the mindset of the midfield, with defense being the preference under the younger Scot. If he plans to implement his similar system at Old Trafford, it will take time to perfect.

Moyes will also have to juggle and balance a rotation 50-plus games that he has never had to before.

In the blue half of Manchester, there is a certain sense that City needs to prove to the rest of the world that they have arrived. Sure their last gasp league clincher two seasons ago gave them their first League title in over 40 years, but in Europe they have been nothing short of an embarrassment. 

Manuel Pellegrini has laid out that City “need” to win Champions League to cement their place as a footballing powerhouse. It is hard enough to win a single trophy in England, let alone spread your sources over the multiple competitions City will partake in.

You could even see moves for Fernandinho and Navas, two players whose style of play have historically favored the open play of Europe as opposed to the hard-nosed English game, as a direct proclamation that Europe is the ultimate goal.

You may be asking yourself, don't these same rules not apply to Chelsea? Won't they also be under new management next season? Yes, but Mourinho has proven time and again that he can implement his system and get success out of players immediately. How else do you explain him winning three league titles with three different teams on his first campaign in charge? 

Once again a deceleration of invincibility for Chelsea is not a slight on any other club in the league. It is more a belief that the stars will align for the Blues the way they did for Arsenal in 2003-04. The Gunners won only 12 games by more than one goal in that season and only six by more than two, along with their 12 draws. 

Being an invincible does not purely mean you are the best team in your league. There is an element outside the feet of your players and the mind of your coach which factor in just as much: the intangible quality of luck. There has rarely been a champion in any sport that can argue they did it all by themselves. The unexplained can always explain sports' biggest achievements.

For Chelsea, that bit of luck is all that separates them from great to greatest.

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