Vesper

Chelsea risk falling inexorably behind while the future of Stamford Bridge remains unresolved https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6229780/2025/03/26/Chelsea-stamford-bridge-boehly-clearlake-eghbali/ “We have to think long-term about what we’re trying to accomplish. We have a big stadium development opportunity that we have to flesh out. I think that’s going to be where we’re either aligned or we ultimately decide to go different ways.” With one enigmatic sentence in an interview with Bloomberg this week, Todd Boehly brought the minds of many Chelsea supporters back to the ownership friction with majority shareholders Clearlake Capital that had gone quiet since spilling out publicly last September. Yet it was actually the unresolved stadium issue, referenced before the talk of parting ways, that has an even more substantial bearing on the club’s future. June will mark the third anniversary of Clearlake and Boehly’s £2.3billion ($2.98bn) takeover of Chelsea, and there is a distinct possibility that it will come and go without any public communication of a stadium plan. Only one option has been definitively discounted, according to senior club sources who spoke anonymously to The Athletic: there will be no stand-by-stand renovation of Stamford Bridge. In terms of the costs involved, the disruption and the limited ability to improve matchday experience or capacity, such a revamp is not regarded as feasible. That leaves only a complete demolition and redevelopment of Chelsea’s home of 120 years or a move to the other end of Brompton Cemetery, and the vast site which formerly housed the Earls Court Exhibition Centre. The unique challenges involved in the former would likely make it one of the most complicated stadium construction projects undertaken by a football club, while the costs involved in purchasing the Earls Court site from property developer Delancey and then building a modern stadium on it would be formidably expensive. There is a widespread belief that Boehly is set on moving to Earls Court, while Clearlake has not ruled out staying at Stamford Bridge as it continues to evaluate both stadium options. The reality is that neither party has declared their position, and Chelsea are trying to maintain a delicate balance between thorough due diligence and a sense of urgency that recognises how far the club has already fallen behind many Premier League rivals in this regard. Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s home since 1905 (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images) Roman Abramovich knew Chelsea needed a new stadium to match their new status 15 years ago. This is a problem that Clearlake and Boehly inherited, and one of the conditions of their takeover was a firm commitment to build a stadium befitting of a club in Europe’s elite. The initial suggestions that a stadium plan would be communicated by the end of the 2022 seemed optimistic, even at the time. That self-imposed deadline was pushed back to the summer of 2023, then to sometime in 2024. Shareholders queued out the door to get a seat in the Drake Suite at Stamford Bridge for the annual general meeting of Chelsea Pitch Owners (CPO) — the fan group which owns the freehold of the stadium and the name Chelsea FC — in January. News that club president and chief operating officer Jason Gannon would be in attendance had some hopeful of finally hearing a firm announcement of a stadium plan. Instead they heard a reprise of a familiar message: nothing is decided, but when we have news we will share it. Gannon’s presence was still well received and he has made a positive impression in proactive dialogue with Chelsea fan groups, particularly in contrast to previous chief executive Chris Jurasek. Formerly the managing director of SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, Gannon has extensive relevant expertise and has been very active since his appointment in October 2023 in exploring the feasibility of the Stamford Bridge and Earls Court options. He also, crucially, has the full backing of Clearlake and Boehly to lead the project. But none of this changes the fact that Chelsea are caught between two dauntingly unenviable options: one which presents huge feasibility challenges (redeveloping Stamford Bridge) and another which requires land they do not own (moving to Earls Court). Publicly tipping their hat towards either before they have a proposal that is fleshed out and fully costed might put the entire endeavour in jeopardy, given the need to ensure a multitude of stakeholders are on board. There is a natural contrast here with Manchester United, who earlier this month announced grand plans to build a shiny new 100,000-seat stadium on the site of Old Trafford that were heavy on artist drawings and light on detail or clarity of funding. But moving too slowly runs the risk of Chelsea’s already limited options dwindling further. Delancey, via the Earls Court Development Company, submitted a hybrid planning application to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) and the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (LBHF) in July 2024 for a sprawling mixed use development on the Earls Court site. This would include the construction of 4,000 new homes, extensive retail and office space, three large cultural and performance venues, and an urban park. What You Should Read Next Chelsea and Stamford Bridge: Should Boehly-Clearlake stick or twist? Whatever decision Chelsea make on their stadium will be expensive and difficult, but it will also define the Boehly-Clearlake ownership That proposal was formally validated in September 2024 and public consultation concluded in November 2024. Even accounting for the scale, scope and complexity of the project and the need to satisfy two different London councils, there is a distinct possibility that planning permission could be granted before the end of 2025. Chelsea know all too well from Abramovich’s aborted “cathedral of football” stadium project that planning approval alone is no guarantee that a project will happen, but it is a significant milestone. Chelsea’s previous application to LBHF to redevelop Stamford Bridge was submitted in November 2015 and finally gained planning approval 15 months later. That plan initially involved leaving at the end of the 2017-18 season to play elsewhere for three years and return to a new home for the start of the 2021-22 campaign. Delays and spiralling costs, however, repeatedly pushed back that timeframe until Abramovich indefinitely paused the project in May 2018. To clarify, that was six years from submitting a planning application to hopefully inaugurating a redeveloped Stamford Bridge — and even that quickly proved too ambitious. It should be no surprise that many Chelsea season-ticket holders, who have an older average age than their peers at any other club in the Premier League, sincerely wonder if they will live to see their team play in a new stadium. In the meantime, other Premier League clubs continue to pursue their own stadium projects. Everton will bump Stamford Bridge down from ninth to 10th in the ranking of the division’s largest stadiums when they move into their new 52,888-capacity arena in the Bramley-Moore Dock area of Liverpool next season. Everton’s new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock (Carl Recine/Getty Images) Clearlake and Boehly both know that a new Chelsea stadium is a must within the next 10 years. The only option they cannot countenance is doing nothing, since it would condemn the club to permanently operating at a significant matchday revenue deficit relative to many of their domestic rivals. The ripple effects of that would be felt almost everywhere at the club, from ticket pricing to the players they could afford to sign and keep. To get it done they are also keenly aware they will need to work with CPO, the unique organisation created by former chairman Ken Bates and his lawyer Mark Taylor in 1992 to act as a democratic safeguard against anyone who might try to take Chelsea away from Stamford Bridge against the club’s best interests. Abramovich failed in the only previous attempt to gain the required 76 per cent CPO support to move Chelsea to another stadium site in 2011, but he was looking for blanket approval to leave Stamford Bridge rather than presenting a specific stadium plan. Clearlake and Boehly could secure a very different outcome if they made a detailed, compelling case for their own proposal. But ultimately CPO shareholders cannot provide any answer until they are asked a question. Could the journey to that point include a change in the current ownership structure at Stamford Bridge? It cannot be ruled out, though Clearlake and Boehly both remain adamant that they are going nowhere. Nor will Chelsea if the club’s long-standing stadium problem remains unsolved.

I am not 100 per cent sold on him yet but after the ones I listed he would probably be up there with the rest would probably take him over Gittens

streets ahead of all the others on the list world class

Huijsen and Murillo (and sell the deadweight) and I am happy.

only winger tagets I want to hear about Vinicius Junior Florian Wirtz Jamal Musiala Rodrygo Bradley Barcola Kenan Yildiz

good

Special moment for Olivier Giroud and his family as he is honoured as the top goalscorer in history for the French Sr men's team.

Whether Chelsea could actually afford to launch £200m bid to sign Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior this summer https://tbrfootball.com/whether-Chelsea-could-actually-afford-to-launch-200m-bid-to-sign-real-madrids-vinicius-junior-this-summer/ Brazilian superstar Vinicius Junior is in talks with Real Madrid over a new contract, but he does have interest from elsewhere, TBR Football understands. The 24-year-old is now widely recognised as one of the best footballers on the planet and narrowly missed out on last season’s Ballon d’Or. His current deal, that he signed in 2023, runs out in just over two-years and as such Real have instigated contract talks. During that time Vinicius has seen Kylian Mbappe arrive on the club’s largest contract, understood to be worth around £500,000-a-week. The Brazilian is a little way off Mbappe in terms of his current wages and is believed to be seeking near parity with his French colleague and TBR Football understands that is forming part of the current talks. Both parties are confident that a deal is close, but whilst a deal is not signed – links continue to emerge with possible moves away. The Saudi Pro League are long-term admirers of Vinicius and we are told would pay ‘whatever is required’ to land him and sources in Spain suggest that £200million would be the level that Real would consider business. Saudi Pro League could compete with Chelsea for Brazilian superstar Aside from the Pro League, TBR Football can confirm that Chelsea are huge admirers of Vinicius and would also be very interested in landing him, if the opportunity arose. Part of Chelsea’s interest is based on the fact that a move to London is believed to appeal to Vinicius if, and when, he does move on from Madrid. Whilst in theory Chelsea and Vinicius could be open to one day linking up – could it actually happen? No doubt Chelsea could afford any deal, but would the Premier League’s rather restrictive PSR rules prevent any sort of deal from happening? Not necessarily. Could PSR stop Vinicius Junior from moving to the Premier League? We spoke to our Head of Football Finance and Governance Adam Williams to get the lowdown on whether a deal would be possible. “The mantra of Chelsea’s owners seems to be ‘move fast break things’. They have only complied with Premier League PSR because of intra-company property sales, like the Stamford Bridge hotel sale that generated £76.5m for the profit and loss account,” Williams explained. “UEFA’s rules, which the Premier League has rejected the chance to mirror pending the outcome of Manchester City’s challenge to the APT system, are tighter. “However, the punishments are much less sever. UEFA are handing out relatively tiny fines – that’s why the likes of Aston Villa and Chelsea, are, I think, comfortable with breaching their rules. “UEFA’s system is acting more like a competitive balance tax at the moment, like the set of rules in Major League Baseball, which Boehly and Mark Walter are familiar with through their ownership of the Dodgers. “So if they were interested in a deal for Vinicius Junior, it’s the domestic rules they would have to worry about, not the European ones. “I think if there is a realistic chance of a deal of transfer of this magnitude and they really wanted to make it happen, they could probably make it work. “That would be through a combination of player sales and, potentially, more financial sleights of hands from the accounting department. “We haven’t seen their accounts for 2023-24 yet, but the estimates are that they will post a small profit thanks to the intra-company player sales. “In 2024-25, their massive operating losses and the – apparent – lack of intra-company sales mean that they will be well in the red again, although for PSR purposes it will be a more modest loss than previous seasons. “Although he wouldn’t really fit their usual recruitment profile, the commercial value of a player like Vinicius Junior might tempt them to test the limits of PSR once again. “That said, they obviously wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near what the Saudis are said to be offering him.”

Mike Penders will join Chelsea in the summer – is he ready for the Premier League? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6215603/2025/03/20/mike-penders-Chelsea-analysis/ In mid-February, we invited requests from our subscribers for articles you might like to read on The Athletic as part of our latest Inspired By You series. Nemanja M. asked for a piece on Mike Penders, his potential, and whether he could be a generational talent. Liam Twomey took a look… Chelsea’s weekly goalkeeper psychodrama took another twist before Sunday’s 1-0 defeat against Arsenal, with head coach Enzo Maresca’s effective admission that Robert Sanchez has been restored as his No 1 after being given time out of the team to “rest his head”. Sanchez went on to deliver his familiar mixed bag of erratic distribution and impressive saves at the Emirates Stadium. There still appears to be no realistic prospect of the Spaniard winning the trust of Chelsea’s match-going supporters anytime soon. Filip Jorgensen clearly did not do enough in his Premier League audition to convince Maresca of his superiority to Sanchez. The wait for the truly elite goalkeeper Stamford Bridge has craved since Thibaut Courtois pushed his way to Real Madrid in the summer of 2018 will stretch at least until the end of this season. But could the answer be close at hand and could it be another giant Belgian from Genk who carries a squinting resemblance to Courtois? Mike Penders — only 19 years old but standing almost 6ft 7in (200cm) with a formidable wingspan — will join Chelsea this summer. His arrival comes almost 12 months after a deal was agreed to bring him to London under the noses of several other major European clubs. Chelsea’s goalkeepers have struggled this season (Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images) The imminent arrivals of exciting attackers Estevao and Kendry Paez have garnered more headlines, but given the lack of clarity at the base of Maresca’s team and the scarcity of world-class goalkeepers, Penders has the potential to make even more of an impact. In the short term, Chelsea and Maresca must assess his level of readiness at the end of his first professional season. To date, Penders has made only 11 appearances in the Belgian Pro League, having been promoted to Genk’s first-choice goalkeeper in January. That is a perilously small sample size from which to make definitive judgements. Penders’ outings for Genk are, however, substantial enough for a goalkeeping specialist to get a clear sense of his style as well as his strengths and weaknesses at this early stage. With that in mind, The Athletic enlisted the expertise of Matt Pyzdrowski, a retired professional goalkeeper who works as head academy goalkeeping coach for Swedish champions Malmo. Here is a breakdown of several key aspects of Penders’ game. Distribution Pyzdrowski’s overriding impression of Penders is a startling one. “I’ll start with his style of play and the two goalkeepers I’m going to name will get people excited, but at the same time, I also want to pump the brakes,” he says. “The two goalkeepers he reminds me of are Courtois and Ederson. He’s kind of a mix of the two.” Ederson shines through more in Penders’ distribution — in particular, his ability to find team-mates higher up the pitch with impressively accurate longer passes. “He’s not as composed with the ball at his feet as Ederson yet, but what I really like about Penders is his ability to go long,” Pyzdrowski adds. “He’s able to stretch the field just like Ederson and start counter-attacks from nothing, which is a huge asset. The way he hits the ball is fast, direct, but also very accurate.” On the surface, this particular quality seems a little redundant under Maresca, who has pledged to substitute Sanchez and Jorgensen this season if they kick long. But there is an important distinction to make between a goalkeeper kicking long and passing long; Maresca’s primary issue is with the former and his desire to avoid simply gifting possession back to the opposition. Penders’ ability to identify and hit a longer pass over or through an opposition press could be an asset to any high-possession team. His technique is also polished over shorter distances. But when it comes to baiting the opposition press as Maresca frequently wants his goalkeeper to do, Penders is more of a work in progress. “One area where he’ll need to develop is playing under pressure,” Pyzdrowski admits. “Genk love to build up from the back, but often he has time on the ball. Even if a press comes, it isn’t really a high press. “He’s never been punished for a poor pass (by conceding a goal), but he gets stressed when the opposition really press. That’s not unique to him among goalkeepers — Ederson is an outlier. “Penders will need to develop that when he takes the next step (to Chelsea) because teams will notice that and press him high.” When not being harried, Penders’ relatively high comfort level on the ball — even well outside his penalty area — seems well suited to Maresca’s system. “He’s very comfortable playing high off his line with his feet in the build-up,” Pyzdrowski says. “That’s the way Genk play and Chelsea like that as well. And with his ability to go long, if he’s standing 30 yards from goal with the ball at his feet, that means a ball into the opponent’s box is on and he can very easily start an attack.” Chelsea goalkeepers need to be comfortable with the ball at their feet (Johan Eyckens/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images) Shot-stopping Even in an era when elite clubs and their coaches increasingly want 11 skilled outfielders in possession, keeping the ball out of the net remains the fundamental differentiator of a great goalkeeper. Pyzdrowski sees rich promise in Penders’ shot-stopping ability, but also plenty of room for physical and technical improvement. “One area he needs to improve is his ability to traverse his goalmouth,” he says. “He can be a bit slow in some of his actions and footwork. That’s not crazy because he is only 19, but when you watch clips of him, it’s not often that he traverses his whole goalmouth and makes an extension save. “You could say that’s because he has really good positioning but when he’s out of position, he doesn’t necessarily get over in time. When he doesn’t need to take a lot of steps he’s very, very good. When the ball is more towards the side of the goal, low or high, he needs to get a bit more explosive in those situations. “Part of it is work in the gym with a good strength and conditioning coach — focusing on explosive plyometric exercises, jumping up and down and from side to side. “Controlling your feet underneath you is hard for a lot of taller goalkeepers and that’s part of what made Courtois and (Petr) Cech so great. They were very tall but also very quick traversing their goalmouth to make the big saves their teams needed them to make.” This also applies to shots Penders tries to save above his head. “When fans see him play, he will probably remind them of Courtois,” Pyzdrowski adds. “Even though he’s really tall, he bends down quite low and holds his hands low at his sides as well. That’s something Courtois has done for a long time, a staple of his technique. “The thing that makes Courtois so great is that he can go from that low position and move his hands up very quickly to get balls above his head. That’s an area Penders will have to improve. That comes back to the explosion and agility, for him to dig his feet into the ground and use his trailing leg to set and push off towards the ball. “In a lot of the goals he concedes, he doesn’t do it and just falls to the ground rather than using his legs to get himself to the ball.” Command of the penalty area It might not come as a huge surprise that, given his size, Penders is already very adept at claiming high balls into his penalty area. “Commanding his area is what he’s best at,” Pyzdrowski says of Penders. “He’s really, really excellent at taking an aggressive position and very comfortable coming and taking high balls into his penalty area, even right up to the edge of the box. His timing is very good and he loves to catch the ball rather than punch. “That’s why I call him a mix between Ederson and Courtois, because Ederson has that aggressiveness commanding his box but Courtois has the hands to catch and hold the ball.” Penders’ preference for catching the ball could be a refreshing break from the growing Premier League trend of goalkeepers punching away in-swinging corner kicks. It could also potentially provide more reassurance to a Chelsea defence that can still appear uncertain when defending set pieces. His penalty area presence for Genk is not only felt when facing high balls. “On his line and with balls around his area, he’s really good,” Pyzdrowski adds. “He’s a big guy but he’s very quick to pounce when there’s a free ball in and around his box. He uses his body and has really good timing in those situations.” Penders has good command of his penalty area (Virginie Lefour/Belga/AFP via Getty Images) Sweeper-keeping The ability to defend far from goal has become an important skill for modern goalkeepers and a vital one in teams, such as Chelsea, who seek to defend with a high line for long stretches of games. “He’s very fast off his line — almost too fast because he’s very uncontrolled in those situations,” Pyzdrowski says of Penders. “A lot of the time he rushes out recklessly and you end up giving away fouls and penalties. Other times he’s rushed out and opened up an angle to concede a goal, so his decision-making in those situations will have to get better. “In that way, he also reminds me of Ederson, who has been better in recent years but had some ugly moments (early on at Manchester City) with his timing in one-versus-one situations.” Ederson’s example suggests that this particular flaw in Penders’ game is eminently fixable. “This is not strange because he’s so young and he doesn’t have a tonne of game time at the top,” Pyzdrowski adds. “As a goalkeeper coach, I would much rather have a goalkeeper who’s too aggressive than too passive. You can always rein in a goalkeeper who is too aggressive, but it’s very hard to get a passive goalkeeper to play more aggressively because they’re so rooted to their line.” Readiness for Chelsea? By the time Courtois finally made his competitive Chelsea debut in August 2014, he was 22, with four full seasons as a No 1 goalkeeper behind him — three of which were spent on loan at Atletico Madrid, where he won the Europa League, Copa del Rey and La Liga — and reached a Champions League final. He already had a case for being the best goalkeeper in the world. Penders, clearly, is at a far earlier point in his development. “He’s a project,” Pyzdrowski says. “If there are Chelsea fans out there hoping he arrives in the summer and competes for the No 1 spot, it’s too early. “It would also be a risk to throw him into that situation. That’s not to say a 19-year-old can’t handle it, there are examples, but other goalkeepers have got a chance too early and faded because it crushes their spirit and beats them down. “If Chelsea really believe in him, they’ll be smart and maybe go through pre-season or half a season with him before loaning him out again to continue to get first-team football and develop.” The key difference is that with Courtois, Chelsea had the rare luxury of being patient because of the enduring greatness of Cech. None of the current goalkeepers on the club’s books are anywhere near as accomplished, making the question of how Penders’ development is handled much more fraught. But there is no doubt or debate about his potential upside. “When you have someone two metres tall and as quick and agile as he is, it’s a huge advantage for him and something that gets noticed because it’s not normal,” Pyzdrowski says of Penders. “If he gets game time and works on his deficiencies, it’s not hard to see him being one of the best goalkeepers in the world in a few years.”

1 nil Lewis-Skelly

https://redditsoccerstreams.org/event/england-albania/1508774 https://soccer-100.com/event/fifa-worldq-uefa/albania-vs-england-live-soccer-stats/724926

hard pass

I hope we do not get rat-fucked and FIFA tosses in an actual power team against us

Planned-for-the-future squads: Chelsea at the top https://football-observatory.com/WeeklyPost496

Paul Scholes criticises Cole Palmer’s dip in form: “I’ve felt for a while that for Cole Palmer, it’s almost been too easy for him to play in that Chelsea team. He knows he’ll play every week and be the best player. I think he needs challenging more, and I don’t get the impression that they [Chelsea] are desperate to win anything.”

Palmer had a scan on Monday to see how things were looking, and Simon Phillips has reported that while there were no problems on the scan, pain remains in the hamstring area, with another scan set for Wednesday. He said on Substack: “SPTC sources can confirm that Palmer has now had the results of that scan and it has come back all clear. However, the pain in his hamstring is still there. “Our sources have also learned that Palmer will be going for a new scan today [Wednesday] on his back to see if the cause is referred pain from his back causing his hamstrings to be tight.

Chelsea’s big-game mentality has deserted them – just look at their record against the top teams https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6207167/2025/03/17/Chelsea-arsenal-results-mentality/ It may not be what some of their fans want to hear but Chelsea’s problems run deeper than the tactics of head coach Enzo Maresca. When it comes to the big games, this squad have a serious belief issue. The underwhelming display in their 1-0 away defeat against Arsenal on Sunday was the latest chapter in a series of disappointing performances from Maresca’s side since late December. Even the four straight wins which preceded Sunday’s game, against Southampton, Leicester and Copenhagen (twice) were unconvincing. Maresca certainly has questions to answer about what is going on right now, and judging by the reception he got from some in the away end at the Emirates Stadium yesterday, they want to hear some better ones, even though Chelsea are fourth in the Premier League with nine games to go. Yet the sign of a very good team, one capable of not only qualifying for the Champions League via a top four/five finish but also competing to win Europe’s top club competition itself, is their record against fellow top sides. We are talking Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City (despite their downturn this season). Manchester United and Tottenham have to be included too, even though they are struggling in the table’s bottom half this season, because they also have intense rivalries with the league’s other big fish. When Chelsea were at their best during the Roman Abramovich era in the first two decades of this century, competing for and winning Premier League titles (five of them) on a regular basis, victories over that quintet were commonplace. Chelsea would go to places like Arsenal and most people in the crowd, let alone the 22 out on the pitch, would know what the result would probably be. And if it wasn’t an away victory, it would at least be a draw. But those days are a distant memory now and Chelsea’s record in these fixtures since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium took over the club in May 2022 makes for bad reading. Reece James, third right, clashes with Arsenal’s Jurrien Timber (Julian Finney/Getty Images) If it wasn’t for Cole Palmer scoring the latest winner in Premier League history against Manchester United in the 101st minute back in April (Chelsea went into stoppage time 3-2 down that day), they would have no wins against United, Liverpool, Arsenal and City in all competitions over 26 matches. Even if you add Tottenham, who Chelsea have dominated results-wise for over 30 years, whether they were any good or not, it does not look a great deal better. To highlight how worrying this trend is, just look at the table below. TEAM PLAYED WON DRAWN LOST GOALS FOR GOALS AGAINST Manchester City 9 0 2 7 6 19 Arsenal 6 0 2 4 4 13 Liverpool 6 0 3 3 3 8 Manchester United 5 1 2 2 8 11 Tottenham 5 3 1 1 12 8 As it also shows, Chelsea have been outscored by every one of these teams during this period, apart from Spurs. This simply is not good enough. Also, if you just consider Premier League matches, they have only three wins in their last 20 away games against teams who have started the day above them in the table. Chelsea last bucked that trend against Bournemouth in September. To be fair, some of Chelsea’s struggles against these opponents began before the change of ownership. Chelsea last won at Arsenal in August 2021 — the same year they also had their most recent triumph over Liverpool at Anfield. They also beat City three times in 2021, at the Etihad in the Premier League, at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-final, and in Porto in the Champions League final. They have failed to beat City home or away since. There were some promising signs that the gap was narrowing under Mauricio Pochettino last season with the two draws against City and that dramatic success over United. Maresca can also point to the first half of this campaign, where Chelsea genuinely looked good in draws with Arsenal and United. After the 2-1 loss away to Liverpool in October, their coach Arne Slot conceded Chelsea were the only team his men had faced this season who had been “better than us” — well, until they faced Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League’s round of 16 this month, anyway. There is October’s 2-1 home win against Newcastle, while December saw a 3-0 triumph over Aston Villa, also as Stamford Bridge, and coming from two goals down to beat Spurs away, to offer some encouragement. And the hope is that Palmer, Nicolas Jackson and Noni Madueke will all be back after this 17-day break for international matches and the FA Cup quarter-finals. But overall, there is still something missing; that ability to face the toughest tests and come out on top. A mental block. The people now running Chelsea have deliberately chosen a transfer policy which focuses on signing youth and potential, and it means they now have the youngest team in the Premier League. But playing such a long-term strategy, waiting for players to develop into the finished article you’ve envisioned, is coming at a cost. Marc Cucurella cuts a frustrated figure at the Emirates Stadium (Julian Finney/Getty Images) Chelsea looked beaten from before the kick-off on their previous trip to the Emirates back in April, and lost 5-0. It felt the same on Sunday, especially in an opening half-hour when they did not have a single touch in the opposition penalty area and the home side dominated. To Chelsea’s credit, they managed to stem the Arsenal attacking tide but they still never looked like scoring. Now, they were without key attacking players, Palmer and Jackson in particular. Romeo Lavia, so impressive in that loss to Liverpool at Anfield, was a late substitute having just returned from two months out with his latest injury. But Chelsea in their pomp knew how to cope with such setbacks and get the result anyway. When asked by The Athletic if he thinks this is a problem he inherited and has to overcome, Maresca did appear to admit something is missing. He replied: “If the results say that… what I can say (is) between the first game against Arsenal (November’s 1-1 draw at the Bridge) and today’s game, to be honest, I don’t see a big difference between us and them. “This means we are… for me, since I arrived… I have the feeling we are on the right path and we are very close. We need just that step forward to compete in these kind of games. That step comes finishing in the top four, top five, Champions League spot.” Nobody can dispute that the August 2023 addition of Moises Caicedo from Brighton & Hove Albion has improved Chelsea’s midfield, but you can sense a bit of frustration over their struggle to make that final step. Speaking to Sky Sports afterwards, he said: “The team is good, the team is working hard to win the games. We want to show character, we want to play our best football and we want to win games like this.” The topic is relevant because, with just five points between themselves in fourth and Bournemouth in 10th, the race for Champions League qualification looks like going to the final day of the season. Chelsea’s nine remaining fixtures include meetings with Tottenham, Liverpool and United. To return to the Champions League next season, they simply have to add more numbers to the wins column in their biggest fixtures.

What’s happened to Chelsea? https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6207666/2025/03/17/newcastle-carabao-cup-win-saudi-owners/ Back in December, it seemed as if Enzo Maresca had done the implausible even before the halfway point in his debut season as their head coach and had made sense of the broiling chaos that is Chelsea. They looked like one of the only plausible challengers to Liverpool for the title, leaving champions City and their identity crisis in their wake and seeming even more convincing than Arsenal. Cole Palmer was tearing teams apart, Moises Caceido looked more like a £100million player should and Nicolas Jackson was scoring goals. That all feels like a long time ago now we’re in the middle of March. Chelsea’s season has been split into two extraordinary halves: the first saw them second in the table on 34 points, with just two defeats from 16 games. But since they drew with Everton just before Christmas, it has flipped entirely: in a table only of matches played after that point, they are 15th, below West Ham and Wolves, and perhaps most embarrassingly only above Manchester United on goal difference. They have won just four of their 13 outings since then, and look incapable of creating chances. The performance at Arsenal on Sunday was perhaps a nadir, admittedly without the injured duo of Palmer and Jackson, yet it was still pretty embarrassing that they had 68 per cent possession but only eight touches in the home penalty area. According to Opta, the 0.35 expected goals (xG) they generated was their lowest total yet under Maresca. Chelsea’s form has slumped since Christmas (Julian Finney/Getty Images) Perhaps this is just a bad run of form, exacerbated by injuries and fatigue. Or perhaps the first half of the season was the exception, that Maresca was overperforming with a poorly-constructed squad, and these last few months have been closer to Chelsea’s true selves. Either way, it’s a troubling echo of last season: Maresca’s Leicester City started the Championship campaign in similarly rampant form, going 12 points clear at the top of the division in February. However, the wheels came off after that, a run of six defeats in 10 meaning that, while they were promoted automatically with plenty of room to spare, the last third of the season was more of a struggle than it should have been. When Maresca then left for Chelsea, there wasn’t exactly wailing in the streets among elements of the Leicester support. If Chelsea finish this season in the top four or five, Maresca will have done his job. But they have not looked like a Champions League team for a long time.

Dario Essugo: Chelsea’s new defensive security blanket – with errors to iron out https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6209977/2025/03/17/dario-essugo-Chelsea-analysis/ For those wondering what to expect from Dario Essugo at Chelsea, here are the words he chose to describe his game at the start of his season-long loan at Las Palmas last summer. “I know I can contribute a more physical game to the team, with a lot of contact,” he said at his unveiling press conference on arrival in Gran Canaria from Portuguese giants Sporting CP, as reported by Las Palmas’s official website. “I like to steal the ball and move forward. I can provide defensive security; that’s what I want, to help achieve the team’s goals.” On the surface, that description makes Essugo exactly the type of midfielder that many Chelsea supporters have been crying out for this season, either to partner Moises Caicedo against more physically intense Premier League opposition or to relieve part of his huge minutes burden. Having only celebrated his 20th birthday last week, he also fits the player profile that Clearlake Capital have chosen to channel the bulk of their vast recruitment investment towards over the last two years. But that makes his arrival less likely to satisfy supporters who believe Enzo Maresca’s squad is being held back by a lack of high-level experience. Essugo has at least been involved in the senior professional game for three years, ever since becoming Sporting’s youngest-ever debutant at 16 years and six days when he came on as a late substitute in a 1-0 league win over Vitoria de Guimaraes on March 20, 2021. His elevation to the first team came before he had made a single appearance for the club’s junior, under-23 or B teams, and the significance of the moment brought him to tears at the final whistle. Sporting’s coach at the time, Ruben Amorim, was impressed by the quality Essugo brought to first-team training in the days leading up to the match and encouraged him to express himself during his cameo. “I told him: ‘Joao Mario, who has a yellow card, is going to come off’,” Amorim explained afterwards, as reported by MAGG. “I need someone to help (Joao) Palhinha. When you have the ball, you have more freedom than Palhinha.’” That advice could be applied to the way Essugo, a tenacious defensive midfielder with some playmaking skill, has tried to take onto the pitch ever since. But most of his opportunities to grow in the senior game have come away from Sporting, where he was behind the likes of Palhinha, Joao Mario, Matheus Nunes, Manuel Ugarte, Hidemasa Morita and Morten Hjulmand in the midfield units that helped Amorim surpass Porto and Benfica to win two Primeira Liga titles. Essugo winning the ball back against Betis (Fran Santiago/Getty Images) Essugo managed just 10 league appearances for Sporting before embarking on his first loan spell with Portuguese minnows Chaves in August 2024. There he got his first taste of being a regular starter in a team that finished bottom of the Primeira Liga while his parent club finished first, meaning he ended the season with the rare achievement of simultaneously adding a relegation and a league title to his career resume. He may end up repeating the feat this season; Sporting are well positioned to be Portuguese champions again while Las Palmas are on course to drop out of La Liga. Essugo’s contribution has highlighted both his quality and his flaws. Only five La Liga midfielders to have played 900 or more minutes average more than Essugo’s 1.9 interceptions per 90 minutes, and there have been signs of real on-ball polish despite the team’s relatively direct style. He uses his body well to shield the ball and win duels, and his willingness to receive passes on the turn and beat a man should lend itself well to the demands of Enzo Maresca’s system at Chelsea. His off-ball movement is improving. But there have also been plenty of errors — most memorably against Real Valladolid last month, when Essugo’s loose pass presented the ball to Anuar Tuhami and prompted Las Palmas team-mate Scott McKenna to cynically bring the midfielder down, resulting in a straight red card. Essugo himself has been sent off twice in his last four appearances for Las Palmas. In the second half of a 1-1 draw with Osasuna in January he responded to receiving a second yellow card in the 72nd minute by sarcastically clapping referee Jesus Gil Manzano, which earned him a further two-match suspension. His most recent outing against Real Betis earlier this month was also cut short by a second yellow card in the 61st minute for a slip and rash tackle on Isco. Indiscipline is not an unusual issue for a midfielder with Essugo’s particular brief, and his 1.8 fouls per 90 minutes for Las Palmas this season are comparable with Caicedo (2.0 fouls per 90) and Enzo Fernandez (1.8 fouls per 90) at Chelsea. Maresca’s first task with his new midfield signing may simply be to curb the 20-year-old’s worst impulses without the ball. One of Essugo’s best impulses with the ball occurred in the semi-final of the European Under-17 Championship in 2022. Essugo celebrating his goal against France (Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images) Portugal were eliminated by eventual winners France on penalties but made it to the shootout because Essugo opted to go for goal from 40 yards, connecting with such purity and velocity into the top corner that team-mates put their hands on their heads in disbelief. Goalscoring will never be his primary occupation but striking a ball like that is a nice option to have. Chelsea’s plan is for Essugo to provide cover for Caicedo next season. He is certainly more seasoned for the position than Mathis Amougou, who was signed for £12.5million ($16.2m) in January on the strength of 18 senior league appearances for Saint-Etienne and is expected to be a Strasbourg loanee in 2025-26. There are signs in his physicality and technique that Essugo may prove well suited to the Premier League — but as is so often the case with Chelsea, it is a bet on potential.

Tino Livramento locks up Mohamed Salah https://scoutedftbl.com/tino-livramento-salah-newcastle-liverpool-stats/?ref=monday-night-scouted-newsletter SCOUTED Stats Before we take a look at Europe's Big Five Leagues, I wanted to start with Tino Livramento. Not only did he win every single duel he contested in the EFL Cup Final, he reduced Mohamed Salah to 0 shots attempted and 0 key passes. This was the first time in Salah’s 392 appearances for Liverpool that he had played an entire match and finished it with a blank for both metrics. It was the 13th time Salah has made an appearance for the club and failed to register a shot and only the fifth time he has played 90 minutes and not let fly. Stathead only covers Key Passes for the Premier League and UEFA Champions League - I did some manual checking to confirm the first stat - but, for context, Salah has only failed to blank for both metrics in four out of 361 Liverpool matches across those two competitions. The only one he played 30+ minutes in was the recent away win against PSG. In March 2025, two 2002-born full-backs proved that Salah is not invincible. Give Nuno Mendes and Tino Livramento their flowers.

Clearances The number of clearances made each season has dramatically reduced in the past 20 years, but within our eight-season timeline, the record is not completely unattainable. In fact, Murillo's 2024/25 tally has already broken this 'all-time' list. If the Brazilian averages 8+ a game for the final nine matches, he would overtake both Kurt Zouma and Nathan Aké.

Key Passes No U23 player has ever broken triple figures on the Stathead database. ...but Cole Palmer is leading the race to become the first.

Shot-Creating Actions We have seven U23 players in triple figures this season.