{"id":54809,"date":"2025-08-09T11:07:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T11:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/54809\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T11:07:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T11:07:07","slug":"erik-ten-hag-says-if-chelsea-can-win-the-premier-league-after-losing-to-them-in-pre-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/54809\/","title":{"rendered":"Erik ten Hag says if Chelsea can win the Premier League after losing to them in pre-season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>People are worried about how the short summer break will impact Chelsea going into the new campaign. However, in their first game of pre-season, they completely dominated with an impressive display against Bayer Leverkusen.<\/p>\n<p>During a 2-0 victory against German Bundesliga side Leverkusen at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/club\/stadium\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stamford Bridge<\/a>, several Blues stars looked razor sharp.<\/p>\n<p>On his unofficial Chelsea debut, Estevao Willian opened the scoring as part of a brilliant performance. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/match-coverage\/jimmy-floyd-hasselbaink-predicts-chelsea-star-will-become-a-fan-favourite-after-pre-season-display\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink raved about Estevao<\/a> after the attacker made a great first impression in front of the home fans.<\/p>\n<p>Joao Pedro scored his team\u2019s second goal as he picked up where he left off at the recent Club World Cup tournament.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2229114265-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Chelsea stars Liam Delap, Andrey Santos, Estevao Willian, Malo Gusto and Moises Caicedo during a pre-season friendly against Bayer Leverkusen.\" \/>Photo by Darren Walsh\/Chelsea FC via Getty ImagesErik ten Hag views Chelsea as Premier League title challengers<\/p>\n<p>On Friday night, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/tag\/enzo-maresca\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Enzo Maresca<\/a> competed against Erik ten Hag in the manager\u2019s dugout.<\/p>\n<p>Ten Hag, the new Leverkusen head coach, actually thinks Chelsea can be in the mix to win the Premier League title in the upcoming season after his side\u2019s defeat against them.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if Maresca\u2019s side can challenge for the Premier League, Ten Hag said via HaytersTV: \u201cI think so. You always have to see how the season develops. That is a lot about injuries, but they have a big squad. All the teams you see, they invest so much in the Premier League in this transfer window. There are many teams who can in this moment construct a very good team\u2026 It\u2019s very difficult to say in this moment who is favourite because I think five or six in this moment are able to win the league.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/news\/chelsea-have-now-given-enzo-maresca-his-main-target-for-next-season-following-club-world-cup-glory\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Maresca\u2019s target is another top-four finish<\/a> for Chelsea in the 2025\/26 Premier League campaign. However, there are some external noises suggesting that the talented young squad can compete for the league crown.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thechelseachronicle.com\/news\/jamie-carragher-is-adamant-chelsea-wont-win-the-premier-league-because-of-25m-player\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jamie Carragher insists Chelsea need a new goalkeeper<\/a> before they can kick on and win the Premier League title.<\/p>\n<p>In fairness, the Blues finished 15 points behind champions Liverpool last season, who have made some eye-catching signings themselves this summer to get even stronger.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"668\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2229110784-1024x668.jpg\" alt=\"Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca and Bayer Leverkusen manager Erik ten Hag during a pre-season friendly.\" \/>Photo by Chelsea Football Club\/Chelsea FC via Getty ImagesThe statistics from dominant Chelsea win against Bayer Leverkusen<\/p>\n<p>The eye test will tell you that Chelsea were well on top against Leverkusen last night. It is no surprise that the statistics support that, too.<\/p>\n<p>ChelseaBayer Leverkusen70%Possession30%24Total shots49Shots on target24Big chances0596 (94%)Accurate passes235 (85%)13Fouls committed97Corners4Chelsea vs Bayer Leverkusen statistics via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fotmob.com\/en-GB\/matches\/bayer-leverkusen-vs-chelsea\/2ad7rw#4818320:tab=stats\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">FOTMOB<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Maresca\u2019s side have just one pre-season friendly left to play, which is at home to AC Milan on Sunday afternoon. The attention will then turn towards hosting Crystal Palace in their Premier League opener on 17 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People are worried about how the short summer break will impact Chelsea going into the new campaign. However,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":54810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[3975,218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-54809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-erik-ten-hag","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}