{"id":309013,"date":"2025-11-26T22:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T22:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/309013\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T22:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T22:41:08","slug":"chelsea-hierarchys-low-expectations-may-hurt-their-premier-league-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/309013\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea hierarchy&#8217;s low expectations may hurt their Premier League hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"53\">Reports suggest Chelsea have &#8220;zero expectations&#8221; of winning the Premier League title this season, but this could be an opportunity they would not want to miss.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"56\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/13475806\/chelsea-q-a-title-expectations-enzo-marescas-future-and-who-could-be-next-estevao\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sky Sports<\/a> claim that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/onsi\/soccer\/chelsea\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Chelsea<\/a> hierarchy do not see the league title as a realistic target for this season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"59\">Instead, they plan on building a squad for the next five to ten years, as they believe Arsenal and Manchester City remain the favourites to win the league.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5c\">On one hand, this is a sensible approach. This eases the pressure on their very young squad, while allowing them the time and space to build for the future.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_0,h_0\/c_fill,w_16,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/absolute_chelsea_on_si\/01kb0vjhea2xx1c4gm67.jpg\" alt=\"Cole Palmer, Estevao\" title=\"Cole Palmer, Estevao\" width=\"0\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"5l\"\/><\/p>\n<p>IMAGO \/ Visionhaus<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5p\">The report mentions that Chelsea want &#8220;a squad with six or seven players as good as Estevao and Palmer&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5s\">This would please any Chelsea fan, of course.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5v\">On the other hand, it is also very clear that the competition is much more forgiving this term compared to the last two seasons.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_0,h_0\/c_fill,w_16,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/absolute_chelsea_on_si\/01kb0vcx8kp9w7yncpn0.jpg\" alt=\"Enzo Maresca, Enzo Fernandez\" title=\"Enzo Maresca, Enzo Fernandez\" width=\"0\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"64\"\/><\/p>\n<p>IMAGO \/ Action Plus<\/p>\n<p>Less competition for Premier League title this season<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6b\">After 12 games, Chelsea were third on the table with 22 points last season. This time, Enzo Maresca&#8217;s side sit second with 23 points.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6e\">There is only a slight improvement, but the biggest difference is the competition.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6h\">There were five teams with 22 points or more after 12 games in each of the last two seasons, and only three in this campaign.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6k\">This is partly due to Liverpool&#8217;s current struggles, and Chelsea should take advantage of it.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_0,h_0\/c_fill,w_16,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/absolute_chelsea_on_si\/01kb0vfsm5v04j5w7bb8.jpg\" alt=\"Marc Cucurella, Mohamed Salah\" title=\"Marc Cucurella, Mohamed Salah\" width=\"0\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"6t\"\/><\/p>\n<p>IMAGO \/ Action Plus<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6x\">Manchester CIty remain a threat with Erling Haaland&#8217;s goalscoring prowess capable of winning them games single-handedly, but like Chelsea, they have had inconsistency issues.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"70\">Arsenal are leading the race and are six points ahead of Chelsea, but the gap could be cut to three by Sunday.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-17\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"73\">The Chelsea hierarchy&#8217;s reported decision to prioritise team building for the future has proved to be quite effective.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-18\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"76\">That said, it may be worth the risk to assess the January transfer window as an opportunity to bolster the squad for the title race instead of just searching for more young talents to develop.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-19\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"79\">At right-back, for example, Malo Gusto and Reece James are the only two natural options, and they both have to play in midfield at times.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-20\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7c\">Bringing in a backup player for this position, even on a loan deal, would increase Maresca&#8217;s rotation option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reports suggest Chelsea have &#8220;zero expectations&#8221; of winning the Premier League title this season, but this could be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-309013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}