Chelsea Season Preview 2025/26: How the Blues can kick on and win the league

Roll up for the Chelsea Season Preview 2025/26, featuring transfer madness, great expectations what we'll see this season at the Bridge…

FourFourTwo's Chelsea Season Preview 2025/26

FFT's view

The plan

Chelsea are back where they belong, but getting there was far from smooth. Enzo Maresca & Co crawled over the finish line, never looking convincing but delivering a top-four finish nonetheless. With Champions League football back at Stamford Bridge, both stakes and strain are higher.

Last year’s Conference League allowed squad rotation and risk-taking selections such as Tyrique George. Now? It’s a sprint across four fronts and Chelsea’s young, bloated squad – which will only swell further as Todd Boehly disrupts himself into knots – face elite tests twice each week. Progress must be visible, and performances must have bite. Stop selling the project; start to justify it.

The Coach

Enzo Maresca is still learning. There’s tactical nous in flashes, and Reece James’ half-time entrance in the Conference League final changed the game, but Chelsea fans, who crave charisma and certainty, consider him to be far from elite. The jury’s still out in SW6.

Key Player

Everything flows through Cole Palmer – goals, assists, tempo. But he needs to stay central, literally and figuratively. Don’t overthink it, Enzo: build around him or watch the whole thing unravel. The Blues were horrible to watch during the laconic 23-year-old’s 18-game drought.

Lesson From Last Year

Chelsea flirted with something big in the first half of 2024/25, only to faceplant when it mattered. By mid-December, they were within shouting distance of Liverpool, but fell apart with two wins in 10 up to late February.

If the Blues intend to be taken seriously again on a regular basis, in the bread and butter of the Premier League, they must use their come-from-behind defeat of Real Betis in the final of the Conference League as proof of an improved resilience. Chelsea are fine front-runners already, having won 20 of the 26 games in which they led; now they must learn how to win ugly and move the ball much quicker against serried low-block defences.

The Mood

Muted optimism, at best. The fans are unconvinced by the ownership and Maresca’s safety-first tactics, even if the latter means they concede the fewest big chances in the top flight. A trophy placated sabre-rattlers, but they’ll return if a Club World Cup hangover sets in for an exhausted squad who finished their 2024/25 as others started pre-season for ’25/26.

One To Watch

Liam Delap. The end of both Chelsea’s finishing woes and the cursed No.9 shirt? Maybe. The 22-year-old is raw but ruthless, and hot-headed Nicolas Jackson is still streaky, so Chelsea might just have the line-leading bulldozer they’ve craved since Didier Drogba. Fit-again Romeo Lavia, still only 21, looks a supreme midfield conduit.

Most Likely To…

Do a Spurs, lurching between crisis and silverware, the bottom half and European trophy parade plans.

Least Likely To…

Settle on a goalkeeper – Boehly has wanged £85m on half a dozen of them but will likely shop again. Robert Sanchez made five errors leading to goals: a league ‘high’.

FFT Verdict

5TH New faces Delap and Joao Pedro add threat to a profligate attack that lurches between mini-crises.

The Number Cruncher

The Fan View

Do Chelsea have what it takes to mount a title challenge? We get the view from the stands from Chas Early and Mouch Michaels of the Chelsea Podcast…

This season will be different because Maresca can’t use the first two BlueCo seasons as a yardstick any more. He has to measure up to his own (relative) success.

I won’t be happy unless we play with more intensity and pass the ball forwards more often.

Our key player will be Moises Caicedo, one of the world’s best defensive midfielders. But he plays a lot. Can we keep him fit?

Our most underrated player is Trevoh Chalobah – by the ownership.

Look out for the assured Josh Acheampong. He was great in last season’s Conference League.

The opposition player who grinds my gears is Virgil van Dijk. I just think he’s vastly overrated.

The active player I’d love to have back is probably Thibaut Courtois, sadly. We need to sort out our goalkeeping situation.

A social media account to follow is @1JamesCHELSEA on X for retro match content, or @dmitry.mclachbot on Bluesky for stats analysis.

I’m least looking forward to playing Liverpool at Anfield. Our record there really isn’t great.

The pantomime villain will be our ‘sporting directors’ Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart.

Fans think our owner is clueless about football.

Fans think our gaffer is back in our good books after getting us back to Europe’s top table and winning the Conference League, but his tactics and behaviour have alienated many.

We’ll finish 4th again.

This preview originally appeared in FourFourTwo's Season Preview issue which went on sale in July, available here with free delivery