Cole Palmer of Chelsea celebrates scoring his team's third goal
Chelsea are heading in the right direction, with people starting to assess their title chances
Take a club who finished fifth in the Premier League last season. Who ended the campaign like a train with five wins in a row and with great momentum, scoring 14 goals.
Who had £1.3 billion spent on the squad. And then a further £200 million in the summer transfer window with 13 more signings. A club who had so many attackers that they sent their highest-earning player on loan to a team who finished three places above them and were always considered title challengers. And then have carried on paying most of his wages.
A club who have such a strong squad they can field a shadow team in Europe – leaving out their best player entirely so he is fresh for the league – and are still breezing through the Europa Conference League. A club who are now joint second in the Premier League – sharing an identical record with the team they lent their player to – and are nine points behind the leaders, who have to come to their stadium next May.
A club whose next nine league games include playing five of the current bottom six. Little wonder, then, that despite Enzo Maresca’s understandable protestations that Chelsea are not in the title race, there is a growing sense that they are. And that they certainly should be. “I don’t like the pressure,” the manager said, arguing it was too early to expect to challenge Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City (who are 11 points behind Arne Slot’s side but cannot be written off).
No one can blame the Italian. What else could he say? After all, he took over only after Mauricio Pochettino left and Sunday’s impressive win over Aston Villa was just the 13th he has taken charge of in the top flight.
Maresca inherited an apparently chaotic situation with Joao Felix the 37th permanent signing in the two years of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium. At one point there were 42 first-team players at the club and some brutal decisions had to be made. The numbers are bewildering – Chelsea will counter that, for example, the wage bill has halved, the age of the squad reduced and exciting young players are on multiyear contracts – but look beyond the numbers. There was always method in Chelsea’s apparent madness.
The question was whether they could make that method work. And how quickly. So far, that is a big tick for Maresca and the side who started against Villa is undoubtedly one of the strongest in the league, able to have Felix, Christopher Nkunku and Noni Madueke on the bench. Maresca will argue that Chelsea are a new team – but does that hold water? Against Villa they had Moises Caicedo, who was one of the most wanted midfielders in the league when he was at Brighton and Hove Albion and, like World Cup winner Enzo Fernandez, cost more than £100 million.
They have Romeo Lavia, who Liverpool wanted but chose Chelsea. They have Marc Cucurella, who City had hoped to sign and who won the European Championship with Spain. And they have Cole Palmer as the jewel in their crown, who is one of the top performers in the league. How City could do with him now. These are all players coveted by other big clubs. Managers will always ask for time. But sometimes an opportunity unexpectedly arrives. Maresca, given his last club were Leicester City, should know this.
Romeo Lavia
Romeo Lavia works superbly well in Chelsea’s system as the anchor in midfield
No one predicted this drop-off from City although everyone expected that if it did happen it would be Arsenal, the runners-up for the past two seasons, who were best placed to capitalise. But they have not done so. Not yet. They are rallying now Martin Odegaard has returned but Liverpool have, so far, seized the chance.
Only twice before have a team been nine points or more clear at the top of the Premier League at this stage and both times they won the title (Manchester United in 1993-94 and Chelsea in 2004-05).
But Liverpool are also under a new head coach, Arne Slot, and given the size of the club and the weight of history, there is suddenly more pressure on them with everyone talking as if it is their title to lose. At the start of the season the big question most were asking was whether they could finish in the top four, with that being regarded as success for Slot.
The same question was asked of Chelsea. Everyone regards Arsenal as being in the race. But their record is the same as Chelsea’s. So why cannot Chelsea also be considered challengers? They have not been since another Italian, Antonio Conte, led them to their last title in 2017 and they are certainly outsiders.
But when a team as dominant as City, with four league titles in a row and six in seven years, suffer such a shocking drop-off, it is the time to be ready. A chink of light has appeared. Liverpool have run towards it.
Arsenal are striving to be there. But Chelsea are well placed too. Dispel the idea that Chelsea are some plucky underdog. This is not Claudio Ranieri’s Leicester. They are a well-resourced, well-stocked, talented squad who have been presented with a chance they never expected this season. Can they take it?
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