The math has changed. Two months ago, Chelsea were a talented but erratic side coming off a Conference League run and hoping to squeak into the Champions League spots. Now they stand on the brink of winning their second major trophy in six weeks, with the Club World Cup final against PSG offering both prestige and punctuation.
But the real question lingers beyond the summer stage in the United States: Can this Chelsea team, so heavily invested in youth and orchestrated by a cerebral Enzo Maresca, truly challenge for the Premier League title in 2025–26? The answer isn’t just about tactics or transfers. It’s about timing.
Maresca’s appointment was always a long-term play. But his influence has accelerated expectations. He’s introduced a 3-2-5 build-up shape, empowered midfield technicians like Enzo Fernández and Moisés Caicedo, and redeployed Cole Palmer as a roaming number 10. The style is deliberate and possession-based, echoing Pep Guardiola‘s blueprint but with a younger, hungrier cast.
The team’s tactical identity is clearer than it’s been in years. Goalkeeper Robert Sánchez joins the backline during buildup. Fullbacks invert. The midfield overloads. Palmer drifts into spaces where he can thread or finish.
It helps that the squad is absurdly deep. Chelsea’s average age last season was barely above 24. Palmer is now a 30-goal playmaker. Reece James is fit again. Levi Colwill and Badiashile bring control at the back. Enzo and Caicedo look like a midfield pairing built for dominance. And now, Maresca has more toys: Joao Pedro, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, and the young No. 9 Liam Delap, who fans are already hailing as the striker Chelsea have lacked since Diego Costa.
Tactics, depth, and the final pieces still missing
Still, every bright narrative needs its counterweight.
Chelsea’s youth is also their fragility. Title-winning sides tend to have a core of seasoned veterans. Maresca’s players, however talented, haven’t been through the fires of a 38-match title race. They’re learning on the job. And goalkeeper remains a concern. Sánchez is tidy with his feet, but he’s not yet a commanding presence. Arsenal’s signing of Kepa only deepens that contrast.
Then there’s the question of timing. The Club World Cup has compressed Chelsea’s preseason. Fatigue is real. Maresca called the schedule structurally unfair, noting that the squad has played over 60 matches in a calendar year. Stan Collymore warned that “there’s no way their squad are going to just get two weeks off… and be fresh for the new season.”
And yet.
There is a quiet menace to this version of Chelsea. They’ve been written off, then slowly recalibrated. They ended last season in better form than Arsenal, finished above Tottenham, and outplayed the 2024/25 EPL champions, Liverpool, last May. The Blues’ Conference League title wasn’t a fluke. It was proof of concept. The Club World Cup run, regardless of the outcome, only adds to that belief.
What they lack in experience, they make up for in tactical clarity and squad depth. If Palmer keeps producing, if a striker hits 20 goals, if the defense can stay mostly intact, there is no structural reason why Chelsea can’t push City, Arsenal, and Liverpool.
The safest bet is that they’ll come close. The bold prediction is that they’ll do more than that.
Maresca won’t say it. But the Premier League title is no longer a five-year plan. It’s on the table now.
