Ahead of the 2023/24 Premier League season, Alex Keble takes an in-depth look at each of the 20 clubs.
Chelsea
OK, take two. To put it kindly Todd Boehly’s first year did not go to plan. Since he bought the club last May, Chelsea have sacked two managers, overseen £1billion worth of players moved in or out and slumped to their lowest league finish since 1993/94.
They needed a reset - and they've got one. Mauricio Pochettino has arrived and Chelsea have begun radically reconstructing the squad in his image, tearing down walls to prepare the ground for the second (or is it the third?) revolution in the space of 12 months.
Ten first-team players have been sold, yet still the squad is too big. “We are 29 players here and it is massive,” Pochettino said last week. “Maybe less is more and more is less.”
If anybody can make a success of this situation it’s Pochettino.
The hard work starts in earnest. After the year they’ve had, what happens next is anybody’s guess.
Performance last season
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 |
Crystal Palace
CRY
|
38 | -9 | 45 |
| 12 |
Chelsea
CHE
|
38 | -9 | 44 |
| 13 |
Wolves
WOL
|
38 | -27 | 41 |
| Competition | Performance |
|---|---|
| UEFA Champions League | Quarter-finals |
| FA Cup | Third round |
| EFL Cup | Third round |
PL performance last five seasons
| 18/19 | 19/20 | 20/21 | 21/22 | 22/23 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3rd | 4th | 4th | 3rd | 12th |
How to improve on 2022/23
Where to start? The Graham Potter experiment and the prolific signing of players over the last two windows left Chelsea at their lowest ebb, so much so that supporters would rather just forget last year ever happened.
Chelsea are getting the reboot they need. Just like he did at Tottenham Hotspur, Pochettino is investing in youth, giving significant pre-season minutes to academy products. That should make Chelsea hungrier, sharper and more responsive to Pochettino’s particular tactical demands.
Key transfers
Of the 10 senior players to have departed this summer, two in particular may worry Chelsea fans.
Mason Mount and Kai Havertz are the sort of intelligent, hard-working and gifted players we presumed Pochettino would build his team around, yet they have been allowed to leave for rival Premier League clubs.
Beyond that, the emptying of Chelsea’s central midfield has left just three midfielders, one of whom, Conor Gallagher, is reportedly free to leave. If the club do not manage to sign Moises Caicedo they will be alarmingly short in the middle, something of which the new manager is all too aware.
“We need to add players, as maybe in another position we miss some players and in that position we have four, and sometimes the squad is unbalanced,” he said.
A lopsided squad is the biggest threat to the new regime, although things are looking good in attack. New striker Nicolas Jackson has impressed in pre-season, while Christopher Nkunku is another of those signings that shows Chelsea’s recruitment team knows what they’re doing. Pochettino will just hope Nkunku's knee injury doesn't keep him out too long.
Tactics
It’s been four years since Pochettino last managed in England, but early indications suggests he hasn’t changed much in the interim.
Chelsea’s Summer Series performances reintroduced us to his 4-2-3-1 formation with inverted wingers and flying overlapping full-backs; his attacking moves that funnel through the middle but utilise sweeping diagonals to stretch the play; and his hard pressing from the front.
The changes aren’t just tactical. In all three matches, at least five of Chelsea’s starting XI had never featured in a competitive fixture for the club.
Reasons to cheer
Pochettino promises entertainment and a close relationship with the fanbase, something Chelsea haven’t experienced for a long time. That kind of warmth and positivity will be assisted by the introduction of several academy prospects, evoking memories of Frank Lampard’s first season as Chelsea head coach.
More importantly, Pochettino holds very high standards, accepting nothing less than total commitment. No matter the results, the odds are Chelsea fans will find themselves getting behind this team.
Reasons to fear
There were reports last season of players forced to get changed in the corridors outside the dressing room, and the squad remains unmanageably large. Things must change soon if Pochettino is to create a working environment in which everyone is pulling in the same direction.
Atmosphere is everything. Chelsea supporters may fear what will happen if Pochettino, given such a difficult task, gets off to a slow start.
Patience has been rare under Boehly so far – and we shall see if problems start to distance themselves from Stamford Bridge.
Opening six matches
Given the scale of the rebuild, Chelsea would have preferred an easier opener than facing Liverpool, but things do get easier after that.
TV Info - Broadcasters
West Ham United (A), Luton Town (H), Nottingham Forest (H) and AFC Bournemouth (A) present chances to build up speed before Chelsea host Aston Villa in Matchweek 6.
Predicted XI v Liverpool
4-2-3-1: Kepa; James, Silva, Colwill, Chilwell; Gallagher, Fernandez; Sterling, Chukwuemeka, Maatsen; Jackson
