In the third year of the new ownership, Chelsea have finally achieved that seemingly quite elusive yet rather important goal of qualifying for the Champions League. And we didn’t even need the fact that it’s an expanded field from the Premier League this season, finishing fourth after a final-day away victory against fellow top-five hopefuls Nottingham Forest. It’s our best finish to a league season since 2021-22 and our second highest points total (69) in the last six campaigns.
It may not have been too impressive at times, but in retrospect, it is a solid achievement indeed, especially as we’ve managed to do with the youngest team in the competition’s history (i.e. since 1992-93). Chelsea’s starting XIs over the course of the 38-game campaign averaged just a hair over 24 years, beating the previous record by over a third of a year (126 days to be exact).
It's now official – Chelsea are the youngest team in Premier League history. The average age of their XIs over 2024-25 has been 24 years and 36 days.
The previous record was set by Leeds United in 1999-2000 at 24 years and 162 days. https://t.co/KyKsL6riNY
— Kieran Gill (@kierangill_DM) May 25, 2025
Leeds United, the previous record holders, do provide a cautious tale however. Like Chelsea, they spent big to try to get into the Champions League. Unlike Chelsea, they failed, and would implode rather dramatically. Sackings and firesales followed and they would be relegated just four years later.
There’s a reason on betting on kids is rarely done. Though Alan Hansen was proven wrong, it’s still not often you win anything with kids: Alex Ferguson’s 1995-96 Manchester United remain the second youngest Premier League-winning side at 26 years and 137 days old (though counting methodology is slightly different that the above stat), beaten only by José Mourinho’s 2004-05 Chelsea side of course at 25 years and 312 days (or 25 years and 250 days, if you count just the starting XIs).
Chelsea could yet of course win the trophy with these kids: we play in the UEFA Conference League final on Wednesday. It’s not quite the Champions League, but Ajax won that once with a team of teenagers — their famous 1994-95 side averaged under 22 years old, with an 18-year-old Patrick Kluivert scoring the only goal of the final — so how hard could it be?