LONDON — Chelsea want to start the new season with a spring in their step after winning the inaugural Club World Cup last month and bolstering their already huge squad with another string of new young players.
The club’s US owners are aiming to build on coach Enzo Maresca’s first season at Stamford Bridge when the Blues finished fourth in the Premier League, a gaping 15 points below champions Liverpool but enough for a Champions League spot.
Fans and players are also hoping that the momentum generated by the Club World Cup triumph, rounded off in style with a 3-0 drubbing of European champions Paris St Germain in the final, will carry over into the domestic campaign.
“I said at the start of this tournament that our plan is to win it and people looked at me as if I was crazy,” defender Levi Colwill told reporters after the victory over PSG in July.
“I’m going to say the exact same thing now going into the Premier League and Champions League. I think we’re ready.”
But a knee injury suffered in training has now sidelined Colwill for much if not all of the new season and will raise fears among Chelsea fans about further injuries given the short recovery time from the summer’s exertions.
Maresca will need to find a way to lighten the load on key players such as Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo in midfield, left back Marc Cucurella and forward Cole Palmer, the four players who made the most appearances for Chelsea last season.
With the exception of the indefatigable Cucurella, they were spared many of the matches in Uefa’s third-tier Conference League competition, which Chelsea also won, beating Real Betis 4-1 in the final in May.
But they will not be given many nights off in the elite Champions League this season.
Joining Maresca’s group of core players are high-profile attackers in the shape of Brazil’s Joao Pedro and England’s Rory Delap, backed up by new winger Jamie Gittens, signed from Brighton & Hove Albion, Ipswich Town and Borussia Dortmund.
Brazilian playmaker Estevao Willian — who scored a consolation goal for Palmeiras against Chelsea in the Club World Cup and already has five caps for Brazil at the age of 18 — will begin his Premier League apprenticeship under Palmer.
Netherlands defender Jorrel Hato will be an option to replace the injured Colwill in central defence or give Cucurella a break at left back having played in both positions for Ajax Amsterdam.
