Chelsea have “won it all”, as their fans first sang following the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup triumph over Palmeiras.
Competitions have been invented and reinvented since then and, despite a period of unprecedented flux in terms of the club’s ownership arrangements and transfer policies, Chelsea have won those, too.
After becoming the fourth winners of the Conference League, UEFA’s third-tier club competition, Enzo Maresca’s side stunned MetLife Stadium on Sunday by taking down Luis Enrique’s all-conquering Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 to triumph at the expanded Club World Cup.
Given their squad depth and resources relative to the other clubs in the Conference League — Maresca habitually had the luxury of making 11 changes for midweek league-phase games last season — it was, to some extent, an embarrassment that Chelsea were in the competition in the first place. Winning it felt like the only acceptable outcome.
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Over in the United States this summer, though, there was none of that expectation. A raucous 3-1 group-stage loss to Flamengo seemingly confirmed Maresca’s men were not a side able to bother the very best. But away from the Premier League maelstrom and the “billion-pound bottle jobs” media soundtrack, Chelsea were able to groove their approach under a coach who has hardly been a fan favourite since succeeding Mauricio Pochettino a year ago.
They made the most of a favourable knockout-stage run and, at the weekend, were genuinely fantastic against the consensus best team on the planet right now. In the final analysis, 3-0 flattered PSG, who were torn to shreds down their left flank by the marauding Malo Gusto and Cole Palmer’s imperious match-winning prowess.
“It’s a bit surreal. The boys are buzzing and hopefully it can lead on to better things in the future,” Levi Colwill told Sky Sports. “For the fans, they get bragging rights on every other club in the world. As a club, we’ve won everything — that’s something to be proud about.”
Colwill probably underestimates the ever-volatile nature of bragging rights massively, but as for “better things in the future”, it’s worth asking: can Chelsea win the Premier League next season?
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Regardless of how much progress has been made over the past month, there’s still an awful lot of distance to make up for a team that last won the Premier League in 2016/17. Chelsea did not secure Champions League qualification until the final weekend of last season, when Colwill scored the only goal on a suffocatingly tense afternoon at Nottingham Forest.
In the final analysis, they finished 15 points shy of champions Liverpool, who were able to cruise with their foot off the gas for the final four games. Arne Slot’s men picked up two points during their prolonged lap of honour, which included them being very agreeable visitors to Stamford Bridge for a 3-1 loss on May 5.
The arrivals of Florian Wirtz, Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez mean they have shopped with imposing efficiency. Retaining a Premier League title is not always a walk in the park; Manchester City are the only club to do so since Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United managed the feat in 2007/08 and 2008/09.
Most of the bragging rights Colwill mentioned are trained on Arsenal for the time being and the apparent aversion the north Londoners have when it comes to picking up silverware. Chelsea were five points behind Arsenal last term, in part because Mikel Arteta’s men placed much of their late-season focus upon the Champions League, where they lost in the semifinals to the seemingly indomitable, err, Paris Saint-Germain.
The Gunners were runners-up for a third successive season and in each of the previous two campaigns, Chelsea were 26 and 40 points worse off. It feels as if Arteta will be at the sharp end next season, having constructed a now-or-never situation that could cause Arsenal to buckle. But it’s worth remembering that if we take knockout-cup successes out of the equation, they have operated on a different level to Chelsea over recent years.
Then there’s Manchester City, the dominant side of the era and winners of six out of nine Premier League titles with Pep Guardiola in charge. That context handily explains why City’s emphatic 5-2 group-stage win over Juventus at the Club World Cup was seized upon by plenty of observers as evidence that Guardiola’s men might be “back” after a wretched 2024/25 by their own standards.
A last-16 extra-time loss to Al Hilal certainly didn’t fit that script and, although City have bought well and have the immeasurable boost of Ballon d’Or winner Rodri being back to fitness, they must now sell well as Guardiola reckons with the unfamiliar problem of a bloated squad under new sporting director Hugo Viana.
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There are reasons to believe Chelsea can ride the Club World Cup wave and close the gap on all of last season’s top three. They have an attractive-looking run at the start of the campaign, with four winnable London derbies. After that, it’s Manchester United at Old Trafford and goodness knows what sort of state Ruben Amorim’s team might be in by that stage.
Lee Smith-Reuters via Imagn Images
The added workload in the United States is something you feel might catch up with them in due course, but with a large and young squad, they are better placed to mitigate than most would be. Although Palmer made good on his top billing in New Jersey, Joao Pedro and Liam Delap should each be more reliable sources of goals than the erratic and hot-headed Nicolas Jackson. Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo can probably never completely look like £100-million-plus midfielders, but they’re a damn sight closer than they were. If Romeo Lavia can maintain fitness for any length of time, Maresca has a truly formidable unit in his engine room.
A defence where the likes of Gusto, Marc Cucurella and Trevoh Chalobah have all made notable improvements still feels like the weak link, the area of the team most short of title quality. Ultimately, it’s not impossible to imagine Chelsea finishing ahead of City or Arsenal, even though both would be surprise outcomes. If Liverpool struggle with the demands of going back-to-back, then they perhaps come into view. But making the case for Chelsea finishing above every one of last season’s top three? That’s too much of a stretch for the freshly minted world champions.
