Injuries Threaten to Derail Chelsea Early in The Season

The 2025/26 campaign was always going to be a difficult one for the defending World Champions. The brand new Club World Cup format is a complete unknown as far as its long-term effects, leaving players with as little as three weeks between it ending and their league campaign starting. Chelsea were forced to run a shortened two-match pre-season over a single weekend with a short break as they headed into their toughest season to date. As we speak on September 26, injuries are already threatening to throw this season completely off the rails.

Injuries Could Derail Chelsea’s Season

Hellacious Schedule

One thing about this year is that the team were always going to struggle. After an absence, the Blues are back in the UEFA Champions League for their new league format which requires sides to play eight group games as opposed to six. With a manager and most of the squad never having to juggle this kind of workload before, it was always going to be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid exhaustion.

We’ve seen in years prior how qualifying for and playing in the highest level of European football can be a detriment as teams find it difficult to balance their energy and usually end up losing out in their domestic endeavours.

Adding this to an already fatigued start following the Club World Cup meant that this was a campaign where Maresca would have to use the full breadth of his squad, including fringe summer signings like Dario Essugo or Jorrel Hato. Unfortunately for him, things haven’t gone to plan.

Key Injuries & Lack of Rotation

One has to empathise with the manager who going into the match against Brighton & Hove Albion has only two fit natural centre-backs in Josh Acheampong and Trevoh Chalobah. Levi Colwill’s ACL tear before the campaign started was a crushing blow but fitness issues have prevented either of Benoit Badiashile or Wesley Fofana from factoring in and trying to form strong CB partnerships. Chalobah has played a lot of football and any injury to him would prove disastrous.

Further upfield, Essugo was signed as a defensive-minded replacement for Moises Caicedo, someone who has played a lot of football nonstop for two years now. During the recent international break, the former Sporting midfielder sustained a long-term injury which has forced Caicedo to play extensively during a period where the club would have hoped to rest him.

The same goes for the attacking line where Liam Delap and Cole Palmer’s absences have forced square pegs into round holes. Earlier this season, Maresca appeared to find a great balance with Delap up front and Joao Pedro in behind him, but Delap’s absence has forced Pedro to play a lot of minutes as the number nine, both out of position and leaving him prone to an injury from overextending himself.

Not only are key specialists like Delap, Palmer, and Colwill injured, which makes it difficult to employ Maresca’s tactics to the fullest, but the additional pressure on the remaining players is surely going to end badly. Either exhaustion will fully hit this squad by December or they’ll spend the entire campaign shuffling the deck with short-medium term injuries preventing any consistency or rotation.

Is the Season Doomed?

It’s certainly too early to tell and football is unpredictable on a good day. The Blues are likely to put in some tired, poor performances between now and the end of the year, particularly in the harsh December run. They may need another late-term push to achieve Champions League football as they sacrifice one of the cups and play less towards the end of the season. Palmer’s health could be a long-term fix, and it may not be until the new year when we see the squad back and firing on all cylinders.