Chelsea Finish 10th: The Full Story of Their Worst Premier League Season in Years

Last August, Chelsea walked into the 2025/26 season as Club World Cup winners, Conference League holders and fresh from finishing fourth in the Premier League. They had every reason to believe this would be the year they finally closed the gap on Arsenal and Liverpool.

Instead, they finished 10th. No Europe. Three managers. A squad worth hundreds of millions, and nothing to show for it.

This is how it happened.

It Started With Maresca

Enzo Maresca began the season as the man who had done the impossible at Chelsea. He won two trophies in his first year, got them back into the Champions League and turned a chaotic squad into something that functioned. The bar for his second season was high.

Chelsea could not clear it.

The problems came quickly. A kind start to the fixture list brought just two wins from six league games. A defeat to Bayern Munich in the Champions League added to the gloom. By December, the cracks between Maresca and the club hierarchy were no longer cracks. They were open wounds.

After a 2-0 win over Everton, Maresca shocked the press room by saying the previous 48 hours had been the worst of his time at Chelsea, pointing to disagreements with the club’s medical department over how players were being managed. He never fully explained what he meant. Within 19 days of saying it, he was gone.

On New Year’s Day 2026, Chelsea announced they had parted company with Maresca. There was an immediate legal dispute over whether he resigned or was sacked. Chelsea used the deliberately vague phrase “parted company.” Their lawyers and his lawyers are still working out what that actually means in terms of his £29 million contract.

The timing was extraordinary. Three days later, Chelsea had to face Manchester City.

Enter Rosenior, Stage Left

Liam Rosenior arrived from Strasbourg on January 6 with a six-and-a-half-year contract and enormous goodwill. He was warm, articulate and had a remarkable backstory. His father Leroy holds the record for the shortest managerial tenure in English football, just ten minutes at Torquay United in 2007. The son had landed one of the biggest jobs in the world.

The problem was almost everything else.

Rosenior had never managed a Premier League club. His experience was Hull City in the Championship and Strasbourg in Ligue 1. Chelsea’s squad, already unsettled by Maresca’s exit, did not respond to him. Results stayed poor. The atmosphere at Stamford Bridge grew restless. Reports of a player rebellion surfaced. In one notable incident, defender Wesley Fofana shrugged off an assistant coach who tried to console him after being substituted during a 1-0 loss to Manchester United.

Chelsea picked up nine red cards this season, more than any other team in the Premier League. Discipline was visibly falling apart.

After 106 days in charge, Rosenior was sacked following a 3-0 thrashing at Brighton that ESPN described as “appalling.” He later questioned Chelsea’s desire publicly. Under BlueCo’s ownership, he became their fifth permanent manager in four years.

Interim coach Calum McFarlane took over and steadied the ship just enough to keep Chelsea from a complete collapse.

The Season in Numbers

Chelsea managed three wins in the entire Premier League season between the start of February and the final day. They lost 2-1 at Sunderland on the last day of the campaign, finishing 10th with 47 points.

They will not play European football next season for the first time in years.

The squad accumulated nine red cards, the most in the division. The dressing room went through two managers who could not hold it together and one interim who simply survived.

For a club that spent heavily again this summer adding players like Liam Delap, Andrey Santos and Estevao, finishing 10th is not just disappointing. It is a boardroom failure as much as a football one.

Xabi Alonso and the Reset

On May 17, Chelsea announced Xabi Alonso as their new permanent manager on a four-year deal, starting July 1.

Alonso had been sacked by Real Madrid in January after just seven months in the job. Before that, he led Bayer Leverkusen to an unbeaten Bundesliga title in 2023/24, one of the most impressive seasons any manager has produced in European football in recent years. Chelsea identified him as the man to finally bring stability to Stamford Bridge.

He will be given the title of manager, not head coach. Sky Sports’ Kaveh Solhekol noted the significance of that distinction. “That means he will have more authority, more influence, more of a say in all aspects of the club,” he said. For a club that has chewed through managers at a rate that makes even Roman Abramovich’s era look patient, giving Alonso genuine power is either a sign of genuine change or another promise that gets broken when results turn.

Alonso himself said: “From my conversations with the ownership group and sporting leadership, it is clear we share the same ambition. We want to build a team capable of competing consistently at the highest level and fighting for trophies.”

He is now the fifth permanent appointment of the BlueCo era.

The Real Problem

Chelsea’s issue is not talent. Their squad is packed with it. Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez, Reece James, Nicolas Jackson, Pedro Neto, Moises Caicedo — these are serious footballers. The problem is that serious footballers performing without structure, stability or trust in their manager do not produce serious results.

In the six years Mikel Arteta has managed Arsenal, Chelsea have gone through nine different managers, including caretakers. Nine. Arteta won the Premier League this season. Chelsea finished 10th.

That contrast is not a coincidence. It is the entire story.

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Alonso is a smart appointment. Whether BlueCo give him the time and the backing to actually build something is the only question that matters now. Because if the answer is no, Chelsea will be back here again next May, writing another version of this story with a different name at the top.