Guardian writers’ predicted position: 7th (NB: this is not necessarily John Brewin’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)
Last season’s position: 6th
Prospects
To suggest the Chelsea of 2024-25 are enigmatic hugely underplays it. Pretty much everything that followed the club’s 2021 Champions League celebrations has embraced chaos and confusion. The football world looks on in astonishment as a club with a rich, colourful history is used as an investment vehicle, a trading platform, by venture capitalist owners.
The turnover of players continues to be dizzying, like the ownership’s lack of patience with managers. Last season, quietly, there was tangible progress under Mauricio Pochettino. Sixth place and European football this season, plus losing the Carabao Cup final late in extra time, was a marked improvement with a callow bunch of players randomly thrown together. It was still little surprise when Pochettino departed by mutual consent, a fate he didn’t seem too uncomfortable with.
A mounting need to balance the books after an infamously scattergun, billion-pound recruitment drive and the desire for “pure profit” in transfer dealings led to Trevoh Chalobah and Conor Gallagher, for whom a deal has been agreed with Atlético Madrid, being put up for sale. The academy, which has also seen the departure of key, long-serving and successful staff, now has the role of farming high-quality produce to take to market.
There is talent in the squad, though whether Cole Palmer can be so miraculous again is a key question. Will Chelsea fans get more than glimpses of Christopher Nkunku? What they saw last season was a player of high potential but injuries wrecked his debut campaign. Roméo Lavia was seen even less. Reece James’s body let him down, too. There are reasons to be optimistic. Aside from Palmer, Malo Gusto was a marked Pochettino success. Marc Cucurella had an outstanding Euro 2024 and no longer looks a waste of £62m. But still, such are the volume of questions, nobody knows what to expect from the Chelsea project’s latest venture.
The manager
The appointment of Enzo Maresca, without experience in any top division, suggests the manager’s role is not high in the ownership’s organisational hierarchy. Maresca is no wet-behind-the-ears naif, and has known English football since he was a teenage player at West Brom. Pep Guardiola handpicked him as an assistant and last season his Leicester side, winning the Championship, looked a class apart until a few stumbles from mid-February. There were accusations that Leicester had one style of play, a positional approach that leans heavily on counter-pressing – Maresca’s close friend in football is Roberto De Zerbi – but that voguish style also brought him to the attention of Chelsea’s ownership. Key to being a modern Chelsea manager is managing upwards and sidestepping the internal and external politics. That discipline will test him. It certainly tested Pochettino.
Off-field picture
Thus far, the BlueCo ownership project helmed by Todd Boehly, less visible these days, and Behdad Eghbali, the current frontman, has the look of a serious bust. The spectre of profitability and sustainability rules stalks the walkways of Stamford Bridge. Meanwhile, accountancy wheezes such as selling the two hotels on the forecourt to a different part of the business, and doing similar with the women’s team, resemble acts of desperation rather than visionary commercial nous. A couple of missteps with fans, including increased ticket prices, unpopular corporate schemes such as the Dugout Club and withdrawing subsidies for travelling away fans have met the ire of militant – and well-organised – supporters’ organisations. Success under Roman Abramovich brought comparative serenity, but now long-serving Blues find themselves harking back to their club’s 1970s financial collapse for a spell as fractious.
Breakout star
Chelsea have developed a depressing habit of selling off the family silver. The squeezing out of Gallagher came amid briefings that he would not fit Maresca’s possession game. That opens a berth in midfield for Lavia, who like too many recent Chelsea signings has spent much of his time in rehabilitation from injury. Rewind 12 months and Liverpool were disappointed to be outbid for a player who cost £58m, only to play 32 minutes all season after ankle and muscle problems. A personal disaster for someone who showed such promise at Southampton. There will be midfield competitors, including Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, brought from Leicester by Maresca, and Carney Chukwuemeka, another 20-year-old looking to put injury behind him. There’s also Chelsea’s wanton meat-grinding of talent to be fearful of but Lavia has shown pre-season promise and a skillset beyond Gallagher’s.
The A-lister
The best English footballer in last season’s Premier League, give or take fellow Stockport lad Phil Foden, was Palmer, who appeared unshaken by the madness around him. Palmer’s self-assurance, with Liam Gallagher swagger and those unreconstructed media appearances, has taken him to a place very few others have been: Guardiola’s judgment in letting him leave Manchester City is under serious question. Another unique selling point is that his £40m fee may be the only bargain of the BlueCo era. With a two-footed, long-legged gait reminiscent of Chris Waddle in his Marseille pomp, with added speed, dead-eyed finishing and ice-cool penalty taking, Chelsea, almost certainly by accident, stumbled upon a franchise player. Can Palmer keep it up? He will certainly back himself.
What they did this summer
The Enzo Fernández saga, his ill-chosen social media livestream celebrations of Argentina’s Copa América win offending a squad full of Francophone colleagues, does not suggest an easy, happy camp. It created an embarrassing backdrop to the club’s US tour. Official channels have suggested the matter is closed, as has Wesley Fofana, whose public riposte had stated, quite justifiably, that Fernández’s antics were far from OK. Elsewhere, more happily, Cucurella’s Euros glory saw him land a beer advertising campaign, though the “Haaland’s trembling, Cucurella’s coming, so eat a biscuit” section of Spain fans’ chant was edited out. Ben Chilwell, meanwhile, must have watched Euro 2024 and wondered, like most others, why Gareth Southgate persisted so long without a proper left-back.