Chelsea Finish 10th: How a Treble-Winning Squad Fell Apart

Chelsea entered the 2025/26 Premier League season as FIFA Club World Cup winners and UEFA Conference League holders. They had just finished fourth the season before.

They finished 10th.

No European football. Three head coaches. A 52-point season that ended with a 1-2 defeat at Sunderland on the final day.

The Maresca Departure

Enzo Maresca took Chelsea to fourth place in his first full season, then won the Conference League and the Club World Cup in the same summer. Expectations for season two were high.

The results did not follow.

Chelsea picked up just one win in seven league games heading into the turn of the year. Tension built between Maresca and the club’s ownership group, particularly co-owner Behdad Eghbali, over control of the medical department and player management decisions.

After a 2-0 win over Everton in mid-December, Maresca described the previous 48 hours as the worst of his time at the club. He gave no further detail.

On New Year’s Day 2026, Chelsea announced his exit. The club called it a resignation. Maresca later confirmed the decision was his alone, made because Manchester City represented an opportunity he could not turn down, with Pep Guardiola set to leave the Etihad at season’s end.

Maresca was officially appointed Manchester City manager on a three-year deal, with City paying Chelsea more than £17 million in compensation. Chelsea responded with a pointed statement accusing him of having his “head and heart” focused on another club well before he left Stamford Bridge.

Rosenior’s Brief, Turbulent Spell

U21 head coach Calum McFarlane stepped in for two games immediately after Maresca’s exit, including a trip to face Manchester City.

Liam Rosenior arrived from Strasbourg on a long-term contract in early January. He had never managed in the Premier League before, with his prior experience limited to the Championship and Ligue 1.

The squad did not respond. Results stayed poor through the winter and into spring. Discipline suffered too: Chelsea picked up nine red cards across the season, more than any other Premier League club.

Co-owner Eghbali publicly backed Rosenior at a conference in Los Angeles in mid-April, saying the club believed in him “long term.”

Six days later, after a heavy defeat at Brighton, Rosenior was sacked. Senior executives, including Eghbali, had flown in to watch the game in person. Players had reportedly stopped responding to him on the training ground, and home fans had begun chanting against the ownership.

A break clause meant Chelsea avoided paying out the remainder of his six-year deal. McFarlane returned to steady the side as interim coach for the rest of the campaign.

The Final Numbers

Chelsea finished the season with a record of 14 wins, 10 draws, and 14 losses — 52 points from 38 games.

Their campaign also included a Champions League exit in the round of 16 to Paris Saint-Germain, an FA Cup final defeat to Manchester City, and an EFL Cup semi-final loss to Arsenal.

No European football next season. Two permanent head coaches gone inside a single campaign, plus an interim who covered both gaps.

Xabi Alonso’s Reset

Chelsea confirmed Xabi Alonso as their new manager on a four-year deal. Alonso had been sacked by Real Madrid in January after seven months in the role, following an unbeaten Bundesliga title win with Bayer Leverkusen in 2023/24.

Alonso will carry the title of manager rather than head coach, a distinction Sky Sports pundit Kaveh Solhekol flagged as significant. According to Solhekol, the title gives Alonso more authority and a greater say across footballing decisions at the club than his immediate predecessors held.

Alonso said in a statement that conversations with the ownership group made clear they share the same ambition: building a team capable of competing consistently and fighting for trophies.

The Underlying Problem

The squad is not short of talent. Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez, Reece James, Moises Caicedo, Pedro Neto and Marc Cucurella are all established top-level players.

What the squad has lacked is continuity. Since BlueCo took ownership in May 2022, Chelsea have now gone through five permanent head coaches.

Mikel Arteta has managed Arsenal for six years in that same window. Arsenal won the Premier League this season. Chelsea finished 10th.

Alonso inherits a talented squad and, on paper, more institutional power than the men before him. Whether that translates into stability on the pitch is the only question that will define his time at Stamford Bridge.