Why Chelsea are the Premier League's coming force | OneFootball

After a few years of turmoil, the Blues have got their act together under Enzo Maresca and are eyeing Arsenal at the top

As the board went up for three added minutes, the Chelsea faithful taunted Barcelona one last time. Tuesday’s Champions League clash was long over as a contest, the Blues 3-0 winners, but there was still fun to be had as fans jeered “olé” at every Chelsea pass, Barça pedestrians.

Chelsea sit second in the Premier League and can cut that deficit to three points if they conquer leaders Arsenal on Sunday.

Chelsea do not yet appear ready to win the league, but they are no longer the basket-case club. Enzo Maresca’s side have four wins and four clean-sheets from their past five games.

Unwanted asterisks cling to both trophies lifted last season. Winning the Conference League was par, and critics of their Club World Cup triumph cited its “glorified pre-season” status to diminish the feat. But the way they battered Paris Saint-Germain in that final made rivals take note and gave a glimpse of what can be achieved if smart recruitment meets shrewd coaching.

Estevao fires home with a sensational strike against Barcelona

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Star man Cole Palmer is days away from returning to action after two months out injured. At Chelsea, progress is clear and life is good again.

Maresca’s evolution

At a club obsessed with planning for tomorrow, where splashing tens of millions on the next-but-one could-be wonderkid and handing out contracts to 2033 are commonplace, Maresca is their anchor to today.

Chelsea’s 45-year-old Italian head coach will not be cajoled into discussing the long-term issues at the club. His focus is improving on the weekend’s performance, who to select at left wing — not a potential signing pre-agreed for 2027.

Will he even still be kicking around Cobham then? Well, he genuinely might. When hired in July last year as Pochettino’s replacement, co-owner Behdad Eghbali and other senior figures decided his position, barring disaster, would be safe for two seasons. Such was Chelsea’s need for stability, only next summer will his status be reviewed.

In 17 months, Maresca has done a very creditable job. Chelsea were second in the league until Boxing Day last year, and, while there was something of a false position about that, landing the first trophies under the current ownership and returning to the Champions League by finishing fourth were fine debut-season coups.

Maresca believes Chelsea have improved not only since last term but within this campaign, becoming a more accomplished outfit than when handed a schooling by Bayern Munich in Bavaria in September. Marc Cucurella, one of Maresca’s most trusted generals, agrees. Chelsea, he says, are “settling, more calm, more mature”.

Maresca celebrates after his side deliver a statement performance to beat Barcelona 3-0

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They are enjoying greater control of games and spreading the goals around more evenly than when Palmer and Nicolas Jackson bore the brunt of the responsibility last season.

Maresca joined Manchester City’s academy as a manager in 2020 and honed his craft under Pep Guardiola, but while Chelsea’s owners looked on that favourably when appointing him, the Italian has at times drawn criticism at the Bridge for his perceived risk-free style of play, a sense the rigidity of his 4-2-3-1 system limits the freedom available to Palmer and other attackers.

They boast one of the best academies in world football and Maresca gives homegrown talents a chance. Indeed, Jesse Derry, the pick of England’s Under-19s, chose Chelsea over other European suitors this summer because of Maresca’s track record of rewarding top academy performers with first-team training and games.

The manager manages minutes well, handing key men a rest when he can. Estêvão has not started in the league since September, because Maresca believes keeping the teen somewhat leashed and champing at the bit will get the best out of him.

Barça boss Hansi Flick this week called Chelsea “one of the best teams in the world”. Sure enough, they are “world champions”, as per that unmissable badge on the centre of their sponsor-less shirts. The fanbase back Maresca and it is easy to see why.

The Estevao factor

Estêvão Willian, who upstaged Lamine Yamal with a wondergoal on Tuesday, is the breakout star of the season and already, after just 17 appearances, one of the best signings these owners have made.

Nevin shares in common with Chelsea fans an inability to contain his excitement over just how good Estêvão could become.

Next summer, Dastan Satpayev, 17, Geovany Quenda, 18, and Emanuel Emegha, 22, join Chelsea. Mamadou Sarr and Mike Penders, both 20, return from loan after a valuable year excelling for the Blues’ sister club RC Strasbourg.

A fortnight ago, Chelsea reached an agreement to sign 16-year-old centre-back Deinner Ordóñez from the club that produced Moises Caicedo. Already being dubbed “the Ecuadoran Lúcio”, he’ll join the Blues when he becomes eligible… in January 2028. Chelsea’s youth-tilted recruitment drive shows no signs of slowing.

Enzo Fernández and Caicedo were signed for a combined £222m in 2023. Finally, they look like £100m players.

Where summer recruits are concerned, just three players have more goal contributions across the Premier League than João Pedro, while Alejandro Garnacho, Jamie Gittens and Liam Delap are all starting to come good.

The irony is that Chelsea’s recruitment strategy is long-termist in the extreme yet was impulsive and ruthless in the final days of the summer window as the stampede towards balanced books and blowing up the “bomb squad” ticked into its final hours. João Félix and Noni Madueke were among 22 players sold and more than a dozen loaned out; as soon as it emerged Facundo Buonanotte was gettable on loan, he was landed.

They are still left with unwanted Raheem Sterling and Axel Disasi, who collect handsome wages but train alone. Perhaps the fall guy of the BlueCo churn was Conor Gallagher, a Chelsea academy success story sold to Atlético Madrid for pure profit to improve the bottom line.

After flogging almost all of their depreciating assets, they were being touted this summer as the Premier League’s best sellers. Brighton may have something to say about that, though, with their CEO Paul Barber having accurately quipped that “Chelsea are our best customers”.

The co-owners, and co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, can be spotted watching on from the directors’ box wherever in the world Chelsea are playing. Dave Fallows, the man behind Liverpool’s signing of Mohamed Salah during 12 years there, recently joined to lead on football development.

For all its early peculiarities — and Chelsea accept they will sign a few duds along the way — the blueprint is beginning to work.

Issues to address

Chelsea may still lack the experience and squad depth and be just too early in their cycle to challenge for the Premier League title, but for the first time in a long time there are solid foundations to build from.

There are also necessary next steps. Standard Sport understands there are no plans to sign centre-back cover in January. Yet there is still a feeling they should eventually upgrade in central defence and in goal, where the quality of players available to Maresca lags behind other areas of the pitch.

A flurry of red and yellow cards shows they need to clean up their discipline and fast. Maresca alone has received four yellows and a red this term. Dismissals have already cost them; in this field they must mature.

Geovany Quenda is among the young talents to arrive at Chelsea next summer

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The league’s third-highest injury count — including playing all season without their best centre-back, Levi Colwill — provides an excuse, but Chelsea have dropped points to Brentford and Sunderland, and until they consistently find ways to beat low-block defences, they will find Arsenal hard to catch.

Just as important, though, and perhaps even more pivotal to getting fans onside is earning statement wins. Thrashing PSG has proved a catalyst, and this season Chelsea have already seen off Liverpool, Tottenham and Barcelona, showing Maresca can mastermind victory from those chess-like affairs and that his young players are growing battle-hardened.

Both inside and outside the club, it is acknowledged that the team spirit and togetherness is as good as it has been for an awfully long time. How could it not be? They just keep winning.