The mystery surrounding Chelsea’s experimental preseason | OneFootball

Chelsea’s Club World Cup win was a triumph – we got loads of money, a big trophy and saw some really great performances, both from new players and the team as a whole.

Chelsea could suffer at season start with mini-preseason

Packed Chelsea preseason training, group generic.

It comes at a cost though. Every team in the Premier League other than Man City has been sitting with their feet up for a month while we’ve been playing draining, competitive football against the best teams in the world.

Now our players go on their break, while the rest of league ramps up into preseason.

It’s going to create a very strange start to the 2025-2026 season for Chelsea, and most people would suspect that it’s going to mean a slow start in terms of results. According to Simon Johnson, the majority of our players will only return from holiday two weeks before we start the season against Crystal Palace on Sunday 17th of August.

Loanees the first to return

Johnson quite reasonably expects that Jamie Gittens and Estevao Willian will start a little earlier, as they didn’t make it as deep in the CWC as we did. Then there are others who weren’t taken on the tour and have already returned to Cobham to start their preseason – but as Johnson points out: “they are returning loanees who are expected to be sold.”

“Chelsea have just two friendlies, against Bayer Leverkusen and Milan, before their opening Premier League game versus Crystal Palace.”

So for all the fun we had in the USA, we may pay the price in the early weeks of the season as we look to get up to speed and face teams who are a month ahead in terms of preparation. Don’t be surprised by a few bad results, and a rather mixed up team in those early weeks as everyone plays catch up.