I think it's more to do with the names we had in 2012 including Cech, Cole, Lampard, Mikel, Essien, Drogba, Ferreira, Mata etc.
They had PL winning pedigree and we weren't long off the back of my favourite ever season 2009/10 at the time of the 2012 win. They also could and should have won at least two CLs before 2012 as favourites.
The 2021 team WERE great in the CL (I agree there) but they had no such PL/CL pedigree.