Style and swagger have returned to Stamford Bridge, recalling Ruud Gullit's sexy football of a decade ago and the strutting Chelsea side of the 1970s, the trendiest in town.
It is not just that the southwest London club enjoy riches beyond the wildest dreams of most teams courtesy of billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich.
Nor that they are sitting at the top of the English Premier League, having already coasted into the second round of the Champions League with two games to spare.
Manager Jose Mourinho, who won the European Cup with Porto last season and has settled into English soccer with a self-assurance bordering on cockiness, simply exudes confidence.
"Yes I am even more confident now we can win the title," he said after his side beat neighbours Fulham 4-1 last weekend, their third four-goal haul in as many league games. "That is not me being vain or arrogant. I just feel it to be the case."
Before the game he even suggested that Chelsea would win the title a week or two before the season ends in May.
Mourinho's masterplan has been boosted by the arrival of the season's Dutch revelation, Arjen Robben, who has scored four goals in four matches since his debut following a pre-season injury.
DEFT TOUCH
On Saturday, the 20-year-old winger's lightning speed and deft touch turned the Fulham defence inside out.
"Robben is one of the best players in the world. He was simply awesome," Fulham coach Chris Coleman said, describing the whole Chelsea performance as "breathtaking".
Mourinho and his management team are already looking forward to fans' celebrations along Chelsea's fashionable Kings Road next year -- Chelsea's centenary year and 50 years since their only previous English league title.
It was here in the swinging Sixties and Seventies that Chelsea players such as Peter Osgood and Charlie Cooke, sideburned and kipper-tied, took to the clubs and bars to glory in their victories, alongside film stars and pop celebrities.
Celebrity support is still a feature of the club -- Oscar-winning actor and director Richard Attenborough is life vice-president -- but times have changed.
Now that Abramovich has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the club, Mourinho is under enormous pressure to deliver heavy-duty silverware.
The odd FA Cup, League Cup or even European Cup Winners' Cup may have delighted the good-time team of the 1970s and the new international brigade under Gullit and successor Gianluca Vialli, but Mourinho and chief executive Peter Kenyon seek more enduring rewards.
Kenyon's aim is for Chelsea to become the most successful team in Europe, rivalling Real Madrid, Manchester United and AC Milan, and to market the brand globally.
"It's about sustained success," he said last week. Kenyon has a 10-year business plan that envisages financial profitability, independent of Abramovich's wealth, within five.
"You can only have a successful football business on the back of a successful team," he said. "I don't think you can reach that point without European success."
EUROPEAN FORCE
Mourinho has said he wants to settle long-term in London. He is an ambitious man and building Chelsea into a European force would fuel that ambition.
The Portuguese says he loved watching the FA Cup on television as a child but his mission in his debut season in England is to win Chelsea's first league title since 1955.
He would also dearly like to lay his hands on the Champions League trophy again.
Meticulous planning, commitment, discipline and team spirit are the cornerstones of his campaign.
Laid-back may have described some of his predecessors but it has no place in Mourinho's comprehensive English vocabulary.
When Romania's Adrian Mutu behaved erratically his boss ordered a drugs test which proved positive and the 15.8-million-pound striker was dismissed last month for cocaine abuse.
Mourinho started the season with a disparate group of admittedly talented internationals many of whom had never played together and whose pre-season training had been cut short by the European Championship. His instincts were for control and defence.
While champions Arsenal went on a goal-scoring spree, Chelsea ground out a series of 1-0 defeats and were branded dull by football pundits.
His tactics have paid off. Chelsea's miserly defence has conceded only four times in 19 matches and as team confidence and awareness have grown the goals have started to flow.
Mourinho and the fans just beginning to warm to him might glance at last season's statistics before taking too much for granted, however.
Under coach Claudio Ranieri, Chelsea occupied the top spot for two weeks from November 30 before losing to Bolton Wanderers at home and dropping a place. They never regained the lead and finished a distant second to Arsenal, tumbling out of the Champions League in the semi-finals.
Chelsea face Bolton at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
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