Chelsea have undeniably suffered a serious slump in form during the festive fixtures but maybe they just don’t like Christmas. They beat Leicester on the 23rd of November 2024, then won four more Premier League games in a row. However, they were held to a draw by Everton on the 22nd of December, before two defeats in a row, which were followed by two more draws.
That amounted to a winless run of five games between the 22nd of December and the 14th of January. But with any festive thoughts long gone, the Blues bounced back to winning ways by seeing off Wolves. They beat the strugglers 3-1 on Monday the 20th of January and that victory was enough to see the club move back into the top four.
They also dismissed Morecambe 5-0 in the FA Cup third round earlier in the month and so there are signs that Enzo Maresca’s men have put their bad run behind them. They will play Brighton in that competition next on the 8th of February but they have a break from the Europa Conference League until the 6th of March. That means they can more or less focus all their efforts on the Premier League for now.
The title tilt that was cautiously mooted by some back when their only dropped points in eight games had come via draws with Manchester United and Arsenal might have to wait until next season. Chelsea trail Liverpool by 10 points and have played a game more so it would take a real collapse from the Reds for the club to have any chance of a comeback.
As such, the focus now will very much be on finishing as high as possible up the Premier League table, winning the Europa Conference League and having a good run in the FA Cup too. As said, the three points at Wolves was much needed, and reinstalled them in the top four. But the race for Champions League qualification looks set to go all the way, with several strong sides hoping they can do enough to play in the money-spinning competition next term.
Might Fifth Be Enough?
Home W. 😁#CFC | #CHEWOL pic.twitter.com/0VDI3McbKM
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) January 20, 2025
It has been a good week thus far for Chelsea, with that win on Monday night giving them the nice psychological boost of being back in the top four. But it has also been good for the likes of Nottingham Forest, Man City, Newcastle, Bournemouth and Aston Villa, who will consider themselves in the mix for a Champions League berth next term. That is because it looks increasingly likely that the Premier League will get five spots in the 2025/26 Champions League next term, meaning it will be the top five, rather than the top four, that becomes the target for these clubs.
UEFA are always tinkering with something or other and they recently granted a fifth place to the top two nations in their arcane-verging-on-unfathomable co-efficient system. Last term the two lucky clubs were Borussia Dortmund and Bologna. Germany topped the pile in 2023/24, so Dortmund joined Leverkusen, Stuttgart, Bayern Munich and RB Leipzig in qualifying for the UCL. Italy’s Serie A was second, so as well as Italian champions Inter, plus the three teams beneath them (Milan, Juve and Atalanta), Bologna also qualified.
The places for next season’s competition depend on results this year, and whilst you might not believe it if you watched City’s tame capitulation to PSG, English clubs are doing well. UEFA’s rankings take into account the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League, though are quite heavily weighted – as with money and prestige – to the Champions League.
Teams in the three UEFA-sanctioned tournaments gain points for winning and drawing matches and these are the same no matter what the competition. However, bonus points are also available based on where a side finishes in the league phase and then what stage of the knockouts they progress to. These are very much in favour of the Champions League, with all teams guaranteed at least six points, whilst in contrast, for example, Chelsea got just four points for topping the league phase of the Conference League.
Fair or not, that is the way it is and it clearly favours countries with more teams in the Champions League. However, the system works on a points-per-club basis, so leagues with fewer teams overall are not disadvantaged. There remains a long way to go before we will be sure which two countries will benefit, but as things stand England top the co-efficient table by a reasonable distance, ahead of Italy and Portugal.
We will know more once the Champions League and Europa League league phases are complete, but with Liverpool and Arsenal in the top three of the former, and Aston Villa ninth, things are looking good from Chelsea’s perspective. As said, the Blues topped the Conference League, though that was worth relatively few points, whilst Man United and Spurs are both doing reasonably well in the Europa League.
Once the last 16s of all competitions are confirmed we usually have a reasonable idea of which nations will claim the extra Champions League spot. At that stage there may be just three, or possibly four, leagues, battling it out for the two places.
Fifth Might Be Enough But Blues Aiming Higher
All that said, some Chelsea supporters would very much rather not be wishing Liverpool and Arsenal well in Europe this term, nor Man United and Spurs. Some may take the more fair-minded approach and wish all Premier League clubs to do well on the continent but either way, things would be a lot simpler if Chelsea could just finish inside the top four.
They are where they need to be right now but they still have work to do. It might be reasonable to expect Forest to drift away but then everyone kept saying that about Leicester in 2015/16 – and then they won the league. When it comes to Pep Guardiola’s Man City, the opposite is almost true. There is an assumption that they have to click into gear at some stage and are shoe-ins for a top four.
However, as they showed in the Champions League against PSG, they still have a lot of work to do, so who knows? We have already listed the many other challengers who will be eyeing up a place inside the first four but, call us biased, we think Chelsea will get the job done. In fact, we reckon they’ll end the season in third!