Chelsea

Chelsea are the Premier League’s most expensive experiment, and the jury remains emphatically out on whether the billions spent have produced anything resembling a coherent football club. The Blues have won six league titles, eight FA Cups, and two Champions League trophies — the vast majority of that silverware arriving after Roman Abramovich turned up in 2003 with a chequebook that rewrote the rules of English football. Since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium took over in 2022, Chelsea have spent money at a rate that would make a sovereign wealth fund blush, hoovering up young talent from around the globe with the feverish energy of a collector who has lost all sense of proportion.

Enzo Maresca, appointed ahead of the 2024-25 season after winning the Championship title with Leicester City, has been tasked with assembling these wildly expensive parts into a functioning machine. There are encouraging signs that he is succeeding, which is either a testament to his coaching ability or proof that if you buy enough talented players, eventually some of them will figure out how to play together. Stamford Bridge, the iconic 40,343-capacity ground in west London, remains one of football’s most famous addresses, though the stadium question — redevelop, relocate, or simply pretend the issue does not exist — looms over everything.

Chelsea’s Australian fanbase is enormous, drawn by the club’s Champions League pedigree, its London glamour, and its extraordinary capacity for generating drama both on and off the pitch.

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Chelsea’s 2025-26 season is the acid test for the Boehly-Clearlake project: are the Blues a coherent title contender, or are they a very expensive game of football fantasy? The investment in young players is beginning to produce returns, with several signings maturing into genuine stars under Maresca’s tutelage. Champions League places are the minimum expectation, and there are murmurs about a genuine title challenge. Stamford Bridge remains a fortress when the team is firing, and the blend of youthful exuberance with experienced heads makes for one of the most intriguing squads in the division. The talent is there. The money has been spent. Now Chelsea need to prove that all of it amounts to something more than a very expensive spreadsheet.

VS — Chief sports columnist, australiafootball.com