Last season, even after a brilliant start to his Stamford Bridge reign, head coach Enzo Maresca always refused to entertain the idea. Chelsea, he said, was “not ready” to challenge teams like Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool – and he was proven right, with Liverpool retreating and the west Londoners ultimately finishing only fourth on the final day of the league season in May.
On Friday, speaking to the media to preview Sunday’s top-flight meeting with leaders visiting Arsenal (Chelsea entered the weekend in second place), Maresca was less pessimistic – but still restrained.
“I think, certainly, it’s different than it was a year ago,” he said. “We spent another year together. Again, for me it’s too early. We’re still at the end of November. So it’s too early, and it’s important to get to where we are in March, April.”
If Chelsea beats Arsenal today they will be three points behind Arsenal. It would be their smallest gap at the Premier League summit after 13 games since 2021-22, when they led at that stage and finished third.
At the time of writing they are closer to Arsenal than anyone else (Manchester City and Aston Villa play at the start of the weekend and could be above Chelsea by the time of Sunday kick-off at Stamford Bridge) – but does the evidence so far suggest they will be able to sustain a challenge?
athletic Analyzes key questions related to their title certificates.
What does the data say?
Let’s start with the positives.
Chelsea’s underlying numbers do not suggest that their current position in the table is a temporary one. They rank third in the Premier League for non-penalty xG difference per game – a metric that measures how many goals they will be expected to concede and score based on the quality of chances for and against their side.
This matches their actual goal difference, which was the third best in the Premier League at the weekend. Only Manchester City and Arsenal have scored more goals in the first 12 league games this season.
The caveat is that, based on Opta’s power rankings, Chelsea have had the easiest fixtures in the league so far. As well as leaders Arsenal, they have yet to face City and Villa, who finished third and fourth respectively at the weekend.
Their points per game rate also indicates that this level of performance is unlikely to be enough to challenge for the title. If they maintain their current average across the full 38 matches, Chelsea will finish with 73 points – enough to make the Champions League every season since 2017–18, but not to be crowned champions. Over the past nine seasons, the average points won by a team lifting the Premier League trophy is 92.6.
We can also see from Chelsea’s 10-game rolling points-per-game average, which gives an indication of form throughout the campaign, why Maresca was right to urge against the dizziness last season.
Chelsea’s results from 12 games so far are similar to their returns in the last matchday, with the only difference being that this campaign started with a draw and a win rather than a loss and a win. A poor run of two wins in seven matches at the start of 2025 dashed their title hopes, before a late surge secured another season of European football.
Can his squad cope?
Everyone in the current first-choice XI has cover, and most of these players are getting regular rest, thanks to Maresca’s commitment to squad rotation.
Chelsea have made massive changes in several midweek and Premier League games, and Maresca is making more use of his bench. In the Premier League, 11.6 percent of Chelsea’s minutes have been played by substitute players – the highest in the league, and almost double last season’s figure of 6.8 percent. The fact that many players coming into Premier League games regularly get midweek minutes no doubt helps maintain their match intensity.
The important thing is that Chelsea are improving their squad changes without affecting the team’s performance. There are exceptions to this – in the 2-2 Champions League draw with Qarabag in Azerbaijan earlier this month, a top-heavy team struggled – but it no longer feels as if they are overly reliant on specialist players.
Last season, when Nicholas Jackson and Cole Palmer declined in form together, it left a void in attack. Now, goals are spread around, and Chelsea have avoided over-reliance on any one attacker. This will help avoid a repeat of that costly situation after Christmas.
Chelsea are less reliant on Cole Palmer than last season (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
The attack has performed well despite losing Palmer, who Maresca says is available to start against Arsenal, and the defense has been relatively strong despite the injury to new first-choice striker Liam Delap, and even with wide rotation. The midfield is the area where injuries to key players, particularly Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez, will be most problematic. Romeo Lavia and Dario Assugo are both out of action, although the latter has now returned to training, but is less covered.
Can they keep their heads?
As the table below shows, Chelsea have gone some way to improving concerns about their defensive weakness in recent weeks.
Chelsea’s defensive improvement
| first six games | last six games | |
|---|---|---|
|
gf |
11 |
12 |
|
Sing |
8 |
3 |
|
clean sheets |
2 |
4 |
|
score |
8 |
15 |
Their four Premier League clean sheets in the last five games have come against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley (bottom two in the table entering this weekend’s fixtures), Nottingham Forest (ending Anze Postecoglou’s disappointing, short-lived tenure) and a Tottenham Hotspur team who scored just 0.1 xG on the day. But it’s still a notable improvement.
A big part of this has been keeping sober minds behind. During September and October, Chelsea had three players sent off in the Premier League and seven mistakes due to opposition shots. In November, they have so far managed to keep all their players on the field and have only made two mistakes that led to shots.
Avoiding self-inflicted damage will be key if they are to maintain a title challenge, and they are making progress in that regard.
Are they experienced enough?
Perhaps the most obvious difference between Chelsea and Arsenal is inexperience, a stick often used to beat Enzo and his team. Under Mikel Arteta, Arsenal have finished second in the last three seasons. This is only Maresca’s second campaign as a Premier League manager, and his first in top-tier football at both domestic and European level.
There is some truth in Chelsea being labeled inexperienced, as they have the youngest team in the division, even when measured in terms of minutes played.
The chart below shows that they have a core group of young players who are performing regularly, but not by much.
Arsenal have very few young players.
However, when we look at both teams’ key personnel (those playing more than 75 percent of the minutes), they have similar profiles. Chelsea and Arsenal both have seven men who fall into this category; For both groups, the average age is 25.4 and 25.7 respectively, and the majority of them made their Premier League debuts (including other clubs) between 2020 and 2023.
Chelsea certainly have a young squad – but their key players actually have similar Premier League experience to Arsenal, albeit not necessarily in the title race.
Are they looking forward to a challenge?
Of course, the flip side of this is that Maresca and Arteta are coming into this season from different contexts. In the nearly six years since Arteta took charge at Arsenal, Chelsea have gone through an ownership change and are on their fifth different permanent manager.
This isn’t meant to portray Chelsea as a plucky underdog. They have also invested heavily, including breaking the British transfer record twice – but before the games started in August, there were far fewer outside expectations of them than Arsenal in terms of a title push.
Winning the UEFA Conference League, returning to the Champions League and winning the first edition of FIFA’s expanded Club World Cup, defeating European champions Paris Saint-Germain 3–0 in the latter final, were positive signs. But internally at Chelsea, the expectation is that Maresca’s side will retain Champions League status for 2026-27 and go further and longer in the fight for the domestic crown – but without the Premier League feeling. Sure Get wins this season.
How important is Sunday for Chelsea’s title hopes?
The first obvious point: With more than half the season gone, individual results are not a reliable indicator of who will be lifting trophies months from now.
Losing today – as long as it is an honorable defeat, not a massive defeat – would not be a disaster. Arsenal have allowed an eight-point lead to slip by the end of April in recent years, so it would not be impossible to be nine points behind them in November. Likewise, a win would still leave them three points behind Arsenal and have a lot of work to do to overtake them.
What the three dots will do, however, is symbolize a step forward – from being part of the chasing pack to being serious challengers.
Maresca highlighted the importance of Chelsea being able to compete “against any team” on Friday. Last season, they took only four points from a possible 18 against the eventual top three of Liverpool, Arsenal and City. They have been unable to directly hurt their future title rivals.
After Tuesday’s 3-0 home Champions League defeat to Barcelona, their momentum is as strong as it will ever be – but then, so are Arsenal, who beat Spurs 4-1 in the North London derby last Sunday and beat Bayern Munich 3-1, also at the Emirates Stadium, three days later.
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