Chelsea FC micro-takes

Men: Week 8 win: 4-2-2, 14 pt

A 3-0 away win over lowly Nottingham Forest. At least this match's red card was a second yellow.

Women: Week 5 win: 4-1-0, 13 pts

A 1-0 win vs Tottenham.

Men: Week 7 win: 3-2-2, 11 pt

"Gonna be that kind of season, huh?" I texted.
"So, a typical Chelsea season" came the reply.
"There just seem to be so many flavors of that."
"Chaos and trophies."

Chelsea currently have losses to the 10th and 12th place teams, draws to the 6th and 16th place teams, and wins against the 19th, 14th, and now 2nd place teams. There have been seasons where the team should be good, but it turns out they can't beat any of the top 4 teams and give the last place team 6 points. This season seems to feature a team that can win or lose any week without much momentum.

Given all the injuries following the Club World Cup summer, what are they supposed to do? Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill, Wes Fofana, Trevor Chalobah, Liam Delap, and others are all injured. That includes some offensive and defensive anchors. How many goals can we count on from a Joao Pedro, Garnocho, and Neto combination? Today's goal came from Moises Caicedo. At least today's defense started with Reece James and Cucurella, but can we count on central defenders Achaempong and Badiashile?

Liverpool had been the team who won all their matches despite not looking great. Through 5 weeks, they featured an 8-6 goal differential through the 81st minute and 6-1 afterward. It's fun to win in the waning minutes! Since then, it's been a 2-1 loss to Crystal Palace, 1-0 loss to Galatasaray in the Champions League, and a 2-1 loss to Chelsea when Chelsea themselves hadn't looked great in 5 matches.

In the league, Chelsea get near-relegation zone Nottingham (also 0-1-1 in Europa League), newly promoted but also 7th place Sunderland, and legit-3rd place Tottenham. Here's hoping for some positive vibe generation coming!

Women: Week 4 draw: 3-1-0, 10 pts

Mancester United are a sound defensive team, and they held up at home. The second half began rainy and windy, but that didn't change much. It was midfielder Kaptein with the goal on Macario's backheel assist. But Beever-Jones and substitutes Alyssa Thompson, Sam Kerr, and Guro Reiten couldn't score. That said, Chelsea's offense had more xG (2.5-1.0) and shots on target (6-3).

Men: Week 6 loss: 2-2-2, 8 pt

Second game in a row with a red card. At least it was the second half, but this time it was Trevor Chalobah in the 53rd minute. Then, this was one of those games that was tied 1-1 going into extra time only to have the gut punch of a goal at 90+2 and then a demoralizer at 90+10 for the 3-1 final at home vs Brighton.

Women: Week 3 win: 3-0-0, 9 pts

Aggie Beever-Jones scores her third goal in as many matches for the 1-0 win over Leicester City. Her goals have come in the 31st, 22nd, and now the 7th minute. Hard to get any earlier. But Chelsea hang on the other 83 minutes for the win. Also good to see Alyssa Thompson get her second 45' outing and Sam Kerr get a 22' home debut following her 16' and goal last match.

Men: Week 5 loss: 2-2-1, 8 pt

Mancester United are bad, but when your keeper gets a red card 5 minutes into the match, it's going to be a rough day. At the half, Chelsea were down 2-0 having taken 0 shots. United got their own red card just before half, and Chelsea dominated 2nd half possession, but could only close the score to a 2-1 final. The rain didn't help.

Women: Week 2 win: 2-0-0, 6 pts

Sam Kerr returns. Sam Kerr scores. Her 100th Chelsea goal. It may not have been pretty, but they all count. A striker's goal.

Men: Week 4 draw: 2-2-0, 8 pt

Women: Week 1 win: 1-0-0, 3 pts

The schedule was not kind by featuring Chelsea hosting Mancester City in the first week. They have always played Chelsea tough and have been in the top four since the WSL's inaugural season. But a first half goal by Aggie Beever-Jones and a second half goal by Maika Hamano (assisted by Ellie Carpenter and Wieke Kaptein, respectively), made it hard for City to come back. Chelsea won despite having fewer touches in the opposition box (30-19), shots (17-8), shots on target (5-3), and xG (1.5-1.3). Sam Kerr and Guro Reiten sat the bench, and Naiomi Girma was out with a small injury.

Women: Entering the 2025-2026 Season

Chelsea were one of the 8 founding members of the Women's Super League in 2011, which now has 12 members. Since then, they have placed 6th, 6th, 7th, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st. That's 9 league championships in the league's 15 seasons, including the last 6 in a row. In that time, they have won 6 FA Cups and 3 League Cups, completing the domestic double five times and the domestic treble twice. Only two other doubles and one treble have been won by other clubs.

They have been in the Champions League 9 seasons, exiting in the group stage once, the round of 32 once, the round of 16 once, the semifinals 5 times, and were runners up once. Chelsea have been eliminated in the knockout phase by Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Lyon, Barcelona, Barcelona, Barcelona, and Barcelona. In those eight knockout eliminations, Chelsea were eliminated by the eventual champions 4 times and runners-up 3 times. So we have a bogey team in Barcelona and desparately want to join the small group of elite Champions League's clubs. Since 2015, the competition has been won by Lyon 6 times, Barcelona 3 times, and Arsenal last year. Chelsea have undeniably improved over the years, but the Champions League has been immensely frustrating.

Entering last year, the club lost their 13-season head coach Emma Hayes. Filling the significant coaching vacuum was Sonia Bompastor, who led the team to that second domestic treble. In the league, the team earned a club record for WSL points by losing zero matches. In the Champions League, the team reached their third consecutive semifinal. The year went well.

The club still have long-term players Millie Bright, Niamh Charles, Erin Cuthbert, Guro Reiten, Lauren James, Catarina Macario, Mayra Ramirez, and home-grown Aggie Beever-Jones. This year, the team gets back Sam Kerr from her ACL injury and Naomi Girma from her calf injury. Last year, Chelsea aquired 3 players from Barcelona (Keira Walsh, Lucy Bronze, and Julia Bartel) as well as USWNT defender Naomi Girma, Sandy Baltimore, and Oriane Jean-Francois. For this year, they picked up USWNT forward Alyssa Thompson and long-time Lyon right-back Ellie Carpenter.

With that kind of history, how can the expectation be anything other than winning the league and at least making the Champions League final with a justifiable hope at winning it? Those have been the expectations for the last 5 seasons. We're running it back. Even if you have to sacrifice the league title to win the Champions League, you do it. In terms of players and manager, the team should indeed be set up for substantial success. We'll see if we can beat Barcelona.

Men: Week 3 win: 2-1-0, 7 pts

The home Chelsea radio commentators couldn't believe the team was up 2-0 as they had played so poorly. But the stats were all in Chelsea's favor. We may never know the truth, but Fulham definitely wanted a foul on they play that resulted in a penalty kick against them. There's a concern the early season injuries are piling up, though. Levi Colwell, Cole Palmer, Romeo Lavia are out and the manager is talkign about tired players.

Extra: Are Mancester City going to be bad? They're 1-0-2 right now.

Men: Week 2 win: 1-1-0, 4 pts

Many corners to the near post work against West Ham and their keeper. West Ham are likely to be a bottom-half club again this year. A quick 1-1 score yielded to an equally quick 3-1 lead. Goals scored by forwards Joao Pedro and Neto, midfielders Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, and defender Trevor Chalobah... all without Cole Palmer... make it look easy.

Men: Week 1 draw: 0-1-0, 1 pt

Many shots; over the bar. Well, you can't win them all unless you're the Chelsea Women, and now the men don't have that to worry about.

Men: Entering the 2025-2026 Season

If you don't know, on 30 May 2022 the team was bought by a consortium later known as BlueCo. The team had finished third in the Premiere League. Their 21 wins, 6 draws, and 11 losses earned them 74 points. They were runners up in both the League Cup and FA Cup, and were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarterfinals by eventual champions Real Madrid. But after having won the Champions League the prior year, they won the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup.

Despite the fairly successful season, things were not ok. Keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga was short and struggled. There were aging stars: Antonio Rudiger, Marcos Alonso, Thiago Silva, Cesar Azpilicueta, Jorginho, N'golo Kante, Hakim Ziyech. Others hadn't quite lived up to expectations: Christian Pulisic, Timo Werner, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Kai Havertz. Separately, Romelu Lukaku created his own public relations disaster. It was time to move on from these players.

The transfer windows of the 2022-2023 season saw 20 incoming and 25 outgoing players. The following 2023-2024 season saw 12 incoming and 14 outgoing players, largely moving on from veteran but againg players in favor of youth. It was a reset; a starting over. Who knows when the team would compete for trophies again, as they had gotten used to. This past year saw 12 incoming and 20 outgoing players - still very high turnover.

But the team appears to be on the rise. The last three Premiere League seasons resulted in the team finishing in 12th, 6th, and then 4th place. They earned 11, 18, and 20 wins leading to 44, 63, and then 69 points. In cups, they went from third round exits in both the League and FA Cups, to semifinal and runner-up finishes, and then won the Conference Leage last year. Ok, the Conference League is the third tier league, but winning is a good thing. In the summer, the team unexpectedly crushed Champions League winners PSG by three goals to nil to win the new version of the Club World Cup.

There's nothing like rooting for a team that's on the rise. Chelsea FC enter the 2025 season appearing to potentailly be a young team on the rise. There is still a lot of turnover in the squad, but there are also proven winners in it. It's hard to go into any season with any confidence of a Premiere League or Champions League title, but we are expecting to qualify for Champions League again in a way we haven't in a while. The Guardian Football Weekly podcast crew predicted Chelsea would finish in 1stJonathan Wilson, 4thJohn Brewin, 4thJonathan Liew, 5thJordan Jarrett-Bryan, 6thMax Rushden, and 6thBarry Glendenning. Here's hoping.