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I agree, we were dominating the game with almost 70% possession. I think when we go down to ten men, the issue could be that ordinarily the team is set up to create overloads, but that is almost impossible with 10 men, so the cohesion falls apart.

I hate to keep repeating myself, but we had the third best defensive record in the Premier League last year, only a few goals behind Liverpool. How did we achieve this if our defenders, goalkeeper and manager are all shite? This is genuine question.

The club have said they don’t even care if we lose against Benfica and Liverpool!!!! THEY DONT EVEN CARE!!! We are finished as a powerhouse in England. Done, dusted, finito, it’s over! No overreaction but just simply the reality of the owner’s intentions. The PR briefings that have come out in the last 24 hours are disturbing. Win, Lose or Draw.. BLUE CO OUT!

I am not all that hopeful

Is Chelsea’s focus on youth and squad churn harming their ability to compete? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6661949/2025/09/29/Chelsea-squad-age-churn-recruitment-analysis/ It has been more than 30 years since the legendary Liverpool centre-back turned pundit Alan Hansen uttered six words that continue to resonate with football fans today. And though the Scotsman’s claim — “you can’t win anything with kids” — has been repeatedly challenged in the seasons since, the idea that competitive sides require a healthy balance of youth and proven experience continues to hold weight when it comes to building Premier League squads. Chelsea have not stuck to that line of thinking since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium took over the club in 2022. There has been more than £1.5billion ($2bn) of investment into the squad in transfer fees alone, with 36 of the 48 permanent signings made aged 23 or below since the deal was struck. It means the potential at Enzo Maresca’s disposal is frightening, but there have already been games this season in which his side have looked a little overawed and undercooked for the gruelling schedule to come. “In terms of experience between them and us, I think there was a huge difference,” admitted the Italian after the recent 3-1 defeat to Bayern Munich, in which his opponents boasted more than seven times the Champions League appearances of the 23 players in his squad. Even after an uncomfortable Carabao Cup win against third-tier Lincoln City, Maresca pointed out some of his players have not yet been exposed to the physicality and intensity of English football. “Jamie Gittens had never played against a League One side. Jorrel Hato had never played this kind of game before,” said the manager, cooped up in the cosy press room at the Sincil Bank stadium. “We need this experience. We need it.” On Saturday, they lost 3-1 against Brighton & Hove Albion — giving them two wins, two draws and two defeats from their opening six Premier League games. There are tactical issues for Maresca to iron out and key injuries to account for too. But there is also a distinct feeling that, despite enormous outlay in the transfer market, the constant churn of players for the future is making it difficult to lay lasting foundations for the season. Chelsea’s squad has been drastically reshaped over the past three campaigns, with the aim of bringing in exciting, technically gifted players at an early age and giving them time to develop — sometimes on loan, other times with the first team — while contracted to the club. That strategy is clear when tracking the average age of Chelsea’s starting XI since the turn of the century, where we can see a noticeable dip in recent years. Chelsea’s team has been the youngest in the Premier League in each of the past three seasons, while only six of the 20 current Premier League squads, including the three promoted sides, have made fewer cumulative appearances in the competition. That does not have to be a bad thing. Chelsea’s title-winning squad in 2004-05 was the youngest to win the Premier League in the competition’s history, while their 2024-25 side was the youngest to finish in the top five (they finished fourth). If the talent is there, and it is managed well, then there is little concrete evidence to suggest younger teams are at an inherent disadvantage over their more seasoned rivals. But circumstances have changed over the summer for Chelsea, now competing in the Champions League rather than the Europa Conference League, who face much sterner examinations of their squad depth during midweek games. A persistent groin injury has kept the talismanic Cole Palmer out of action, while Liam Delap, Levi Colwill, Dario Essugo and Tosin Adarabioyo are also on the treatment table. This means too much responsibility has been placed on young and inexperienced shoulders in these early weeks of the season to realistically expect consistent results. Maresca was criticised for his team selection in the 2-2 draw at Brentford, when he included the 19-year-old Hato from the start, alongside debutant Facundo Buonanotte, 20, and the out-of-form 21-year-old Gittens. With just 22 minutes of competitive action under his belt for his new club before his maiden start, it was evident Hato was still getting to grips with his new, very specific role in this Chelsea side. The €40m-plus summer signing from Ajax was tasked with drifting into midfield and disrupting the opposition’s shape when his team-mates had the ball. He struggled to impact the game like Marc Cucurella often does from that position, but it is difficult to blame him for playing it safe on his very first Premier League start. The Netherlands international often looked hesitant to drift too far from his prescribed position in Maresca’s highly structured system. Jorrel Hato, 19, struggled in the 2-2 draw with Brentford (Harry Murphy/Getty Images) Things will undoubtedly click into place, but patience is required, and that is something that has not always been afforded to Chelsea’s project players since the new owners took over. It is not only that they are attempting to “win with kids” — which can be done in the right conditions. Chelsea are trying to win with a different set of young players every year. More stability in the market would allow them to develop more reliable depth across the squad. The Athletic recently looked into the impact of overhauling playing squads on performance and found that generally, the best-performing teams maintain a stronger spine of players from the previous season. The graphic below illustrates the average “squad churn” of each team to finish in each position over the past 30 seasons. It is a metric that calculates how the share of playing minutes shifts from one season to the next, where a churn percentage of zero would mean that every player from last season played the exact same proportion of minutes. A score of 100 per cent would indicate a completely rebuilt side. Unsurprisingly, newly promoted sides tend to experience the most turnover as they look to bridge the gap in quality between the Championship and the Premier League, but there is an interesting trend towards tighter-knit squads as the position in the table gets stronger. Chelsea made nine permanent signings in the summer, with four teenagers joining the squad, while 16 players left the club for good. Of those who departed, 10 had joined Chelsea within the last two years. The speed at which Chelsea are happy to replace players who have not quite clicked means that, aside from a small core, they have a constantly revolving selection of inexperienced players who have not been afforded the time to settle in. Looking at Chelsea’s own squad churn over a similar time period, we can see they have undergone continuous upheaval across the past three years, way above the current rates that, historically, correspond to high Premier League positions. The sheer extremity of Chelsea’s approach means that they are likely to defy precedent. No team have invested so heavily, and so frequently, in so many high-potential players across such a short period of time — wherever they finish at the end of the season, they will likely be the youngest Premier League team to do so. There is no doubt the transfer strategy has yielded some players — from Palmer to Moises Caicedo, Colwill to Enzo Fernandez — who will drive the progress of the club for years to come. In Joao Pedro, Estevao, Kendry Paez, and Hato, they may have identified some more. But it is also clear the current group of players lack some of the intangibles — genuine leadership, dependable consistency, and good old-fashioned knowhow — that only come from experience at the level required. It feels like it is time to supplement the squad with proven talent, or at least give the newest recruits sufficient time before ripping up the plan and starting again next summer.

Chelsea have no plans to panic and sack Enzo Maresca, even if they were to lose the next two games against Benfica and Liverpool. 🫡Summer signings were told no mid-season change (@BobbyVincentFL) 😯

Yep, more problems with players and injuries.... If we lose to Benfica and then Liverpool he's gone

Simon Phillips sources have been hearing since last season that Maresca is not entirely happy at Chelsea right now, and the summer transfer window just made that even worse. Maresca is not content with the squad he’s got and was far from behind a lot of the recruitment we did this summer and feels his squad still lacks a lot of key elements in some positions. SPTC sources have heard that there is definite tension between Maresca and the board. We’ve also heard of some tensions between Maresca and Bernardo Cueva, the Technical Analyst at Chelsea. But we aren’t sure at the moment exactly why or how bad. But we know the Chelsea owners and SD’s respect Cueva and have no plans to move him on. And since last season, as I also reported at the time, there are some players within the group who are also not overly warm with Maresca for different reasons. I’ve reported on Cole Palmer before not really being behind Maresca’s ways of wanting the team to play, and Reece James can also be placed in that same category. There are a few other players as well who are just not overly vibing with the head coach. Of course, you will not hear that in public and in players comments on Maresca, this is not something that will be public knowledge, obviously. But there are certainly some issues in this sense and has been for a while. Sources close to Palmer are also annoyed that he has now got a further injury to his groin after playing games last week when he should not have been playing. Palmer is Palmer and obviously he just wants to play, but there is blame pointing towards Maresca for picking him in the Bayern and Manchester United game, with him getting a further groin tear in the United game and now not returning before the next international break, at the VERY earliest by the way. I wont be surprised if he’s still out for a game or two after the break as well. Palmer is also annoyed because he wants to make sure he can play in the World Cup at the end of the season. This again has not become public knowledge but I consider it factual due to how good my Palmer source is. They clearly don’t want to make it seem like a negligent decision to keep playing Palmer, which it absolutely was. The only thing I can imagine is Maresca leaving the club. I've been saying that since last season because, as I said, he's not happy here and there are a few things that bother him. Plus, a lot of clubs are interested in him. (@Simon Phillips)

Can honestly say I'm not looking forward to this at all, and I expect Jose to camp 10 men behind the ball and catch us on the counter

Pre/Post Match Discussion, Live Chat & Analysis 30th September 2025 Champions League Stamford Bridge 8:00 PM UK

We have delivered results as well, top 4 and two titles so I don't know what you'd talking about. And keeping Disasi is exactly why I don't want a new manager. A new manager comes in and wants to give a try to everyone he has. Now he knows better.

Maresca says there is no reason to be negative and was shown a stat this morning that we have lost 5 games in 6 months and 4 of them had a red card. Maresca admits he could have made better decisions recently with the red cards. "For sure, I probably could have done better with decisions with 10 men. For me, it is a learning process to learn how to play with 10 players. Unfortunately, it happened two times."

After six games in, Chelsea are 8th in the Premier League. We’ve adopted the 2-2-2 approach so far!…View the full article

They bought a shedload new, decent players.

You also have to throw in the mix that whoever is managing, and whatever they do, there will always be people especially on the internet that know better. Even with peak Mourinho when we were winning everything available, I remember people on here re substitutions they didnt agree with, piping up with 'Useless, get rid of him'

Don't tell me another shaggy black hair youngster

Maresca isn't blameless. But we were all questioning some of the moves (and lack of moves in some areas) made during the summer window. The base of the team starts at CB and GK, and they've neglected that part of the team since the beginning, only adding barely passable members to the squad over the years. Tosin, Badiashile, and co are only squad level players at best. You've also admitted before that we're weak in the CB department. Instead they go and spend excess amounts of money on project players like Gittens and Garnacho. They pretended to go after a GK like Maignan, just to generate buzz, when their intent all along was just to stick with Sanchez. And now there's talk in the press claiming that their intent was only ever to be also-rans in big competitions. Not intention to truly challenge.

Great to see AC Milan around the top of Serie A! Pulisic in fine form this season, 4 goals in 5 games and what an assist vs Napoli 🤩 I miss the days when we had a left winger who would actually take on the opposition (Pulisic/Hazard)

My issue is - for the most part outside of a select few games our play has been stagnant and pretty poor. We looked exciting and moved the ball well when Maresca first came in. Was that Poch's work still hanging around and then wore off? The only time we've looked good under Maresca is a select few games post the first half of last season. Despite what others think on here - being slightly weak on LW, and GK and CB issues aren't reasons to be sitting in 8th despite our quality elsewhere on the ground. Trev, Fofana, Tosin and Ach are good enough for a mid table team elsewhere. So why are we in 8th and playing ass football all season despite an abudance of talent elsewhere? Its on the manager.

The CWC win has bought Maresca time but he panicked against a pretty poor United side (taking off two attackers in the first 20 mins knowing that Palmer was carrying an injury). Then against Brighton, whats with the fascination of Gusto playing as a winger, he's not a good defender and he doesn't offer a goal threat in attack.

I think the bigger problem is, we have a GK who wouldn't start for any other top 6-8 PL team. And we have five CB's on the books but none of them get into the top 6 PL sides. Between Tosin, Chalobah, Fofana, Badi and Disasi....I don't see any of them at Arsenal/Livo/City, even Spurs have better CB's.

To blame for what? Last season after finishing 12th and 6th everyone agreed CL qualification would be amazing and he delivered. Winning a trophy was the other goal also accomplished. For CWC expectations were QF at best and we won it. So far, realistically speaking Maresca is overachieving. This season didn't start good but to early to judge. In fact, 3 of the 4 PL losses we have since February came after early red cards by stupid individual mistakes. Pretty sure we wouldn't lose any of those games without that. I'm not speaking from my pov because I always want to fight for title but from club's. Now we hear CL qualification is also a goal for this season. No drama at all from their pov. If they sack Maresca it will be because players may complain about him or him not cooperating for example not playing expensive new wingers not because of the results.