Let me know when your players are in line to win anything, you have just finished above us by a couple of points for the first time in fifteen years and now you are predicting this is the beginning of the end for Chelsea.
As I said yesterday the fact that Chelsea is in the Champions League Final nullifies not having qualified yet for the competition next season as players see a team that can go all the way in the competition as opposed to exerting all kinds of efforts just to get in it.
Considering in the last five years we have reached the Champions League Final twice as often as you have reached the group stages I think it is somewhat premature to be discussing our downfall. I said to you a couple of weeks ago how you have testing times in the transfer market considering Bale and Modric look far from settled, Adebayor finishes his time and Friedel gets older and older.
Actually we finished above you by 5 points, not just a couple.
More relevant to this discussion, you keep looking backwards (the last 15 years, the last 5 years etc) as if this is a reliable guide to the near future ... when actually it isn't, as Liverpool have discovered to their cost.
In Liverpool's case, there they were, still an established part of the top 4 clique, and then wham, suddenly they are displaced (by Spurs) and their complacency is shattered.
Now it's two years later, and Liverpool are still out of the top 4 and in fact have declined further. The only difference is that Man City have since arrived on the scene to make a top 4 finish an even harder aim to achieve ... not just for Liverpool, but also for Chelski.
I say again, if you lose to Bayern then you'll decline further next season and IMO again finish outside the top 4. The signs are all there:
* Dropped out of the top 4 this season
* Several ageing players who are past their peak (or past their peak for other reasons besides age): Terry, Cole, Essien, Lampard, Ferreira
* Key / talismanic player about to leave: Drogba
* FFP regulations coming into force.
* Managerial uncertainty.
You seem to think that not being in the CL next season (if that's what happens) won't affect Chelski's attractiveness to prospective incoming player . IMO you're in denial, because of course it
would have a very significant effect.
All this has come about partly because, as I said at the time, Chelski wasted the whole of last summer trying to sign Modric when he simply wasn't attainable ... and ended up with a Meireles, a Liverpool cast-off, instead.