Chelsea: A Season in Review
The goals, wins, and setbacks, and what it all means in a post-Poch world.
On February 4, 2024, Chelsea lost 2–4 to Wolves at home in what can only be described as one of the lowest moments of the team’s recent history. The Blues were decidedly mid-table, looked every bit their extremely young average age (the second lowest in the league even with the Premiership’s oldest player in Thiago Silva yanking that figure up against its will), and appeared to have the same amount of punch as a passing cloud.
But then, something clicked. This bloated squad of phenoms and potential upon potential from every corner of Europe and South America began to take on an identity. They started supporting one another (well, as long as penalties weren’t involved), trusting in Mauricio Pochettino’s vision (at least someone was), and they ended the 2023/24 Premier League season in sixth, just three points shy of Spurs in fifth and only five points behind a Champions League spot.
Just think if some of the early season losses — Brentford and Forest come to mind — would’ve gone a different way. Even in a season that was completely unhinged, uneven, and at times, unwatchable, we might be talking about one of the most dysfunctional and depleted teams in recent Premier League history reaching the Champions League. Or maybe instead we should ask, how’d we even get here in the first place?
It was fascinating watching Moisés Caicedo get one of the goals of the season from the halfway mark in the last match of the campaign. And I very much enjoyed routinely witnessing Malo Gusto racing down the right flank as if he’d been patrolling that stretch of Stamford Bridge his whole senior career. Yet, it’s important to remember that both of these guys have only just finished their first season with the club. In fact, of the 15 players who made appearances on the final match day of 2024, nine played their football elsewhere last season. Let that sink in for a moment.
Chelsea’s 2023–24 campaign was the beginning of a new era with Poch at the healm (RIP), the new ownership standing firmly by their plan to invest in as much young talent as possible, and then subsequently selling whatever homegrown players they viewed as expendable. As a result, the club spent almost half a billion pounds last offseason, bringing in 13 new players and selling or loaning another 12 to rival Premier League teams, the Saudi Pro League aka the gift that keeps on giving, and two Italian clubs that were decidedly not Inter Milan.
By the time the season started and the dust had cleared, the team was barely recognizable from the Graham Potter/Frank Lampard squad of 2022/23, let alone Tuchel’s Champions League-winning bunch from the season before (my god, what a weird few years it has been). And then, the injuries began.
For a quick refresher, here’s a list of current squad players who missed serious chunks of the past season due to injuries
Reece James
Ben Chillwell
Trevor Chalobah
Wesley Fofana
Levi Colwill
Romeo Lavia
Carney Chukwuemeka
Lesley Ugochukwu
Christopher Nkunku
Notice anything interesting about those nine players? Almost all of them are would-be starters. While Thiago is a rock for the backline, at 39 the hope this past season was to have him play when needed, but mostly serve almost as a defensive adviser who laced his cleats up from time to time. Instead, he played in 31 matches this season.
Had the injuries not all hit the way they had, James, Chillwell, Fofana (damn, remember Fofana?), and Colwill–with Chalobah regularly rotating in–would’ve been the de facto back four instead of the team having to rely on three French players who were fresh to a much more physically demanding league and Marc Cucurella, a player whose season only really took off once he became an inverted fullback/near midfielder for the last chunk of the season in Enzo’s absence.
Similarly, Cole Palmer, who I somehow haven’t mentioned until now, would have never had to put so much of the creative burden on his shoulders with not only Chillwell and Reece feeding crosses in from both flanks, but also if there hadn’t been a gaping hole left by Nkunku’s injury at the beginning of the season, which completely changed the design of the attack. And while Nicolas Jackson did end up with 20 goal involvements this season, which is genuinely wild to consider, it took a long time for the forward line to look any kind of organized or fluid.
Lastly, while Connor Gallagher did end up being arguably the most important player of the season not nicknamed “Cold,” the absences of Chukwuemeka and Ugochukwu–let alone Lavia who many thought might challenge, if not at the very least support, Caicedo and Enzo (the latter of which would have definitely benefited from a rest or three in there)–left the team with little Premier League experience to say the very least. And yet, even though things looked dark as hell during the winter, the team bought into whatever Poch was preaching and finished with the fourth most points after the new year behind only Man City, Arsenal, and Liverpool. Oddly enough, the same three teams that proved to be Chelsea’s most interesting opponents this year, pushing the Blues to their true highs and lows of the season.
So, what happens now? As the team rides an excellent half season into the summer, where do they go? Once players started returning to form and playing how every fan of the Blues thought they would all season, Chelsea suddenly looked fluid, focused, and forceful in a way we haven’t seen in a long time. But now with Poch out, an ownership group who will continue to look for more young talent instead of veteran leadership, and the supporters’ desire for Abramovich-era glory, this summer could be another one full of upheaval and renovation.
However, with a more experienced and proven keeper in goal (think of Ramsdale as the floor or Oblak as the ceiling) and a more polished striker to take the load off Palmer and Jackson (maybe they’re Nigerian, or maybe they’re Serbian, who’s to say?), this team could really come to play next year. While City will continue to be inevitable as long as Pep is around, Arsenal will need to dig extremely deep to maintain their pace from the past few years, and all bets are off with Liverpool now that the Slot era has officially begun.
If this Chelsea squad can stay healthy (a truly monumental if), continue to develop, and further congeal as an actual unit rather than simply one of the most talented groups of young players in the world, then maybe asking “how did we get here?” isn’t the real question after all. Instead, maybe we should ask, “how far can this team go?”
And now, seven super obtuse awards for individual performances, what-ifs, and big outcomes.
Surprise Player of the Season: Malo Gusto (OK, but really Cole Palmer)
When Malo Gusto finally came to the Premier League from Lyon, two thoughts came to mind: either he’s ready to be a full-time backup and get some games in during the Caribao Cup or he was betting on Reece James continuing his fragile run of form. Unfortunately, it was the latter. Yet, while they are most definitely not the same player, Gusto did a very solid job of taking on bigger and faster wingers while truly excelling as more of an offensive wingback. And for that, we say merci. But obviously this honor goes to Cole Palmer. The £45 million lad from City who could barely get any gametime behind Bernardo Silva (and the newly crowned Premier Player of the Season Phil Foden) bet on himself and chose chaos by coming to West London. And what did that get him? The most goal involvements of any player in the entire league (33) and the award for Young Premier League Player of the Season. Today’s forecast: Ice Fucking Cold
MIA Player I’m Most Excited to Watch Next Season: Christopher Nkunku
The man who looked 100% ready to make a huge impact this season throughout Chelsea’s summer 2023 US tour was sidelined on and off for most of the year. But when fit and healthy, Nkunku is arguably the most dynamic player on the team. While I assume the Blues will spend big on a proper striker in the next transfer window, part of me does wonder what the attack would’ve looked like with Nkunku as the number 10 and Palmer playing more to his right in his preferred spot with Jackson up top as a point man rather than having to link play as much as he did. Maybe we’ll see it, maybe we won’t, but either way, #18 is who I’m most excited to see without a restrictor plate on during the next campaign.
He Who’s Gotta Go: One of the Monaco Bros. But really it’s Axel Disasi
If all goes according to plan, Chelsea are going to have a lot of big, strong, and fast center backs all healthy and vying for playing time next season. As such, there’s going to be at least one odd man out. And while Disasi had his moments this season, he’s undoubtedly going to be the first man loaned out. Yes, he’s good in the air and yes, he brings some of the ruthless energy that back line needs, but he’s older (at 26) and slower than the other four guys battling it out and presents the least resale value at this point (well, no one knows about Fofana, but at least when he was at his best, he was doing it against Premier League competition). Bon voyage, mon ami. We’ll always have Selhurst Park, won’t we?
Best Win of the Season: 4–4 vs. Man City
Ok, I know this isn’t technically a win, but it sure felt like one in the moment. A rainy October night under the lights at the Bridge in which City started the scoring and continued pulling ahead again every time Chelsea clawed their way back in. And then, in the 92nd minute, after Armando Broja came nowhere close to scoring, but did secure a penalty, Cole Palmer–the City product and would-be-prodigal son if not for Foden’s own godliness–stepped up and did the coldest thing he did all year by scoring on his former team and proving that he left for good reason. There was so much hope after this match and while the more-than-three months after this were a torturous mix of infectious highs and troubling lows, this would-be loss turning into a draw for the ages is the game from this season I’ll remember most fondly.
Worst Loss: 5–0 at Arsenal
The less said about this the better. Arsenal looked unstoppable from the first minute of play. Add in Kai Havertz’s brace, Ben White’s accidental pass-turned-goal (his second of the game), and the Blues basically melting into a puddle by halftime. All I can say is that whoever Chelsea hires as the Poch’s successor better have the team’s next trip to the Emirates circled on the calendar in big red marker.
Favorite Moment of the Season: Caicedo’s 50-Yard Goal
Palmer’s aforementioned penalty against City to tie the game in stoppage time really is the goal of the season. But for sheer entertainment value, I’ll take Caicedo’s worldie against Bournemouth on the last day of competition. There’s so much to love here: the entire stadium chanting “shoot,” Caicedo actually taking their advice, and the almost wedge-like nature of the shot itself. The ball sails into the net, rather than blasting in with authority, but you can tell from Neto’s immediate reaction that he knows the ball is destined to land ever so comfortably just out of reach. And for a season where Caicedo had to question if he made the right choice choosing Chelsea over Liverpool, feeling the pressure of a £100 million price tag, and just having a real microscope placed on him day in and day out for the first time in his career, you could tell he was able to finally breathe a sigh of relief with his first goal for the club coming in such legendary fashion.
Dumbest Moment of the Season: The penalty against Everton with Chelsea already up 4–0 (as if there could be anything else)
Young dudes are dumb. Young football players are super dumb. Young football players without any real senior leadership (you can see Gallagher walking away during this now-infamous dispute) are extremely dumb. All of this is to say that the spat between Nicolas Jackson, Noni Madueke, and Cole Palmer over who got to take a penalty against Everton in April with Chelsea already up by four was very silly and idiotic. Just watching the clip again, it feels like you’re witnessing a bunch of kids play in a weekend league, but then remember that the three guys are playing at Stamford Bridge and about to go up against England’s #1 in goal. Eventually, Palmer took the penalty and scored. And a few weeks later, Madueke did a complete 180 by sacrificing his own goal-scoring chance to serve one up to Jackson on a platter. There might be no better metaphor for how this team has evolved than those two goals, but let’s hope that there’s a lot more where the latter came from and that we can leave the former behind for good.
