Chelsea

Will Faulks
Fan writer

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Best memory and why?

A scintillating win in the Club World Cup final against the best team in the world, with older signings looking settled and newer signings looking impactful, had everyone believing this team was about to go up a level after some frustrating years.

Worst moment and why?

There have been numerous frustrating moments in the past few months as Chelsea have struggled to find consistency. However, conceding twice against Qarabag after going 1-0 up and ending up drawing the game (doing huge damage to our chances of finishing in the top eight of the Champions League league phase) was a real gut-punch.

If I could drink a New Year's brew with one member of our squad/management it would be....

In the spirit of forgiveness and fresh starts, I'd like to buy Robert Sanchez a pint and let him know there are no hard feelings and nothing personal about the criticisms I have made of him during his time at Chelsea.

I stand by most of it and still see him as a weak point in the team. But he has been great for a long stretch of this season and it is only fair to make sure those who have been most criticised get credit where it is due.

The thing that's infuriated me in 2025 is...

Ill-discipline. The players and the coach cannot stop getting yellow and red cards and often for the silliest reasons. It is not just damaging for the results, it also is representative of the wider lack of maturity which is holding this 'project' back.

My gut tells me 2026 will bring...

Plenty of success and good moments but with real success remaining tantalisingly out of reach as the reality of a youth-based project continues to become clear.

Find more from Will Faulks at Chelsea News, external

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Nizaar Kinsella
Chelsea reporter

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Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca was ill and missed his post-match media duties on Tuesday night.

The Italian, 45, had led his team in the build-up and during the 2-2 draw at home to Bournemouth.

He asked his assistant, Willy Caballero, to stand in for him with rights holders and at the media conference.

"He didn't feel well over the last two days," Caballero said. "After the match he went to the changing room and asked me to replace him.

"I believe in one or two days he will be OK."

Chelsea were booed off after dropping more points at home. There were also jeers when Cole Palmer was replaced by Joao Pedro in the 63rd minute despite the Blues seeking a winner.

Earlier, Palmer had scored only his fourth goal of the season to cancel out Bournemouth's opener.

"Of course any supporter wants to have their best players on the pitch and we want that as well, but Cole is coming back from a long injury," Caballero explained.

"We need to find the right substitutions to go for the game and also take care of the health of our players because we want them for the rest of the season in every single game."

Caballero also admitted to being "very frustrated" at the early yellow card shown to Moises Caicedo, his fifth of the season, which means he is banned for Sunday's trip to Manchester City.

Match of the Day pundit Danny Murphy believes that set-pieces are "becoming a problem" for Chelsea, after they conceded two in their 2-2 draw with Bournemouth.

"They conceded two from long throw-ins. At home, you have to do better when you are trying to dominate a team", said Murphy.

Former England goalkeeper Robert Green added: "One of the biggest threats to Chelsea this season is Robert Sanchez's ability to come and claim these balls.

"They have five players between him and the ball at times. It completely negated his opportunity [to do that] and they suffered for it."

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We asked for your thoughts after Tuesday's Premier League game between Chelsea and Bournemouth.

Here are some of your comments:

Georgio: This team have got to start turning in consistent performances soon. We are too predictable and we lack of any purposeful forward thinking. Problems at the back can be easily remedied by having a consistent back four.

Keith: I can't believe how this team has dropped off the pace in recent games. Since the Arsenal game the defending has been shambolic, and there does not seem to be any drive or passion from the players. What is going on?

Peter: Past two home results not good enough. Manager's team selection strategy must be questionable. Certainly, the squad needs two strikers this January who are as sharp and hungry as Didier Drogba and Diego Costa!

Oliver: Pathetic from a £1.5bn squad. Estevao Willian was the only player showing any desire to run and cause issues. The owners clearly don't care whether we win or lose, only the profit they can make from a trading game but Enzo Maresca is the real issue. He's a basic Championship manager out of his depth.

Arthur: Maresca has to go. This is just getting boring. We can't even beat Bournemouth. It's not the team, it's the manager. We are playing this passing around game without any shots or crosses to our strikers. We need a proper manager like Andoni Iraola who doesn't play a Pep Guardiola game so we can score more goals and win more games!

George: Maresca seems to think that his team are better off than what they are. He seems unable to face playing his strongest team for 90 minutes. If we get a goal ahead he seems to think it is game over and Chelsea have won. He's dreaming. He needs to continue his training as manager but elsewhere. His substitutions are awful and timings are awful. The sooner he goes the better.

Michael: We squandered a lead against Aston Villa and a couple of days later Arsenal thrash them. And again here, we couldn't hold on to a lead. We are a couple of bad defeats away from Maresca being sacked. Must get at least a point at Manchester City.

Steve: Maresca is really not up to it. He needs to go - he is way out of his depth. Come on Chelsea fans, let's make sure he gets the message.

Roma want to sign a new defender and are eyeing two Premier League players, including Chelsea's 27-year-old France centre-back Axel Disasi and Tottenham's 23-year-old Romania international Radu Dragusin. (Sky in Italy), external

Want more transfer stories? Read Wednesday's full gossip column

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Chelsea assistant boss Willy Caballero speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live: "We were losing from the beginning, then we were winning for a few minutes, that can happen. It is so difficult to score goals against these teams with this kind of intensity.

"We scored two goals but we could not manage the game. In that way we need to improve. We need to take the positives and the effort from the players today was amazing."

On Maresca's absence from media duties: "Yes, he is not feeling well. He did not feel well the last two days, but he made the decision [to manage tonight]. I don't know how he found the strength to do it because we saw him working and he was suffering with a temperature and other stuff. Today he asked me to come to replace him because he did not feel well."

Did you know?

• Chelsea have dropped 15 points from winning positions in the Premier League this season – more than any other side. It's as many as they dropped having led in the whole of 2024-25.

Nizaar Kinsella
Football reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Chelsea will be glad to see the back of a miserable December.

In their final November match, they drew with Arsenal at Stamford Bridge, dominating the league leaders despite being reduced to 10 men in the 38th minute, when they were only six points behind the Gunners.

Now, Chelsea sit closer on points to 15th-placed Bournemouth than third-placed Aston Villa, having squandered a one-goal lead against Villa three days ago.

Having led here, they have now lost a league-high 15 points from winning positions. Before this game, the Blues were 13th in the home form table - little wonder some fans booed at the final whistle.

This run of one win in seven league matches has taken Chelsea from the Premier League elite to what some describe as the division's 'middle class'. In a tight table, Chelsea - along with arguably a dozen other clubs - are fighting for European places.

Their target remains Champions League qualification, and an upturn in form could quickly put them back on track.

They will hope 2026 brings improvement, though a trip to Manchester City without Moises Caicedo – suspended after his fifth booking of the season – looks a daunting start.

Whether you were at the game or following from elsewhere, we want to know what you learned.

Have your say on Chelsea's performance

What did you make of Bournemouth's display?

Come back on Wednesday for a selection of your replies

Chelsea change about half the team who lost 2-1 at home to Aston Villa. Marc Cucurella was an injury doubt, and he misses out - with the Blues changing three of their back four. Liam Delap and Estevao replace Joao Pedro and Pedro Neto further up the field.

Chelsea XI: Sanchez, Gusto, Fofana, Chalobah, Acheampong, Caicedo, Fernandez, Palmer, Estevao, Garnacho, Delap.

Subs: Jorgensen, Adarabioyo, Badiashile, Neto, Gittens, Santos, Pedro, James, Buonanotte.

Bournemouth make six changes after their 4-1 loss at Brentford. Among them are Evanilson replacing Junior Kroupi up front.

Bournemouth XI: Petrovic, Truffert, Senesi, Hill, Jimenez, Scott, Brooks, Tavernier, Semenyo, Kluivert, Evanilson.

Subs: Dennis, Araujo, Soler, Smith, Diakite, Adli, Kroupi, Unal, Rees-Dottin.

Henry Cowling
BBC Sport journalist

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The festive period is decision time over who gets presents in their stocking and who gets a big lump of coal. Some Premier League players may find themselves in the latter category given their disciplinary record across 2025.

One player with the joint-most fouls across the year is a name many probably would not have expected – Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo.

Semenyo finds himself at the top of the rankings with 70 fouls committed in the Premier League in 2025, level with Sasa Lukic. The Fulham player is joined on the list by fellow combative midfielders Bruno Guimaraes, Joao Gomes and Moises Caicedo.

It is Chelsea's Caicedo who has the most yellow cards in the Premier League in 2025, with 11.

Lukic, Lucas Paqueta, Tyler Adams, Elliot Anderson and Andre all reached double figures across the year with 10 apiece.

At the other end of the spectrum, Tino Livramento is top of the 'nice' list among regular starters. The full-back has committed just seven fouls across 2025 in the Premier League, four fewer then second-placed Alex Iwobi.

Sophie Brown
BBC Sport journalist

Chelsea host Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge, with the Blues aiming to beef up their home form, while the Cherries are just hoping to find any sort of form.

The Premier League campaign is about to hit the halfway mark but it must feel a lot further on than that for Chelsea's players, whose off-season was massively shortened thanks to the Club World Cup campaign in June and July.

That summer action saw them crowned world champions but getting their hands on the domestic equivalent already looks as if it will have to wait for another season.

Chelsea are fifth but lie 13 points behind Arsenal, and have six points fewer than they did at this stage of last season.

Home form has been costing them, and the defeat at Stamford Bridge by Aston Villa at the weekend – which came despite them dominating the visitors for the first hour – means Chelsea have already lost three home league games this season, having only lost two in the whole of 2024-25.

In all three, they have gone 1-0 up - a worrying trend for the Blues, who have dropped 11 points from winning positions at home this season, which is more than any other side.

In fact, it is twice as many as the majority of top-flight clubs. Perhaps most tellingly, the four clubs above them in the table – Arsenal, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Liverpool – have not dropped any.

The Blues will possibly be relieved that Tuesday's visitors are out-of-form Bournemouth, who are winless in their past nine league matches (D4, L5), and without a victory in their past eight games against Chelsea (D4, L4).

To add to the Cherries' current woes is the expected impeding departure of top scorer Antoine Semenyo, who is set to leave the club in the new year. Only two players have scored more goals in the Premier League this season than the Ghana international, who has found the net in his past three matches.

Semenyo could join an elite group should he score at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday evening.

Only three players have previously scored away at Liverpool, Manchester United and Chelsea in the same Premier League campaign. Semenyo has already scored at Anfield and Old Trafford in this season's top flight and will match Kevin Nolan (2001-02), Gabriel Agbonlahor (2006-07) and Robin van Persie (2011-12) with a goal at the Bridge that may be his last hurrah for Bournemouth.

Chelsea are fifth but they are on a sticky run at the moment, with only one win in six league games.

When they got their draw with 10 men against Arsenal at the end of November, I thought they were in the title race but they have completely fallen away.

However, Bournemouth's poor run of results goes back even further. After climbing to second place at the end of October, they haven't won any of their past nine matches.

It is a concerning time for their manager Andoni Iraola because this might be Antoine Semenyo's last game for the Cherries. Maybe losing three of their first-choice defenders in the summer - Dean Huijsen to Real Madrid, Milos Kerkez to Liverpool and Illia Zabarnyi to Paris St-Germain is catching up with them too.

I'm not sure what is going wrong for the Cherries because they are still so aggressive in the way they press and play, but they are conceding a lot of goals and Brentford played right through them in the first half at the weekend.

It is only because West Ham have been so rotten that Bournemouth are still nine points clear of the relegation zone. I still always think Iraola's side will score, but I'm backing Enzo Maresca's side to win the battle of two very patchy teams.

Sutton's prediction: 2-1

Read the full predictions and have your say here

Henry Cowling
BBC Sport journalist

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David Raya has the most Premier League clean sheets by a goalkeeper in 2025, unsurprisingly so given his involvement in Arsenal's lauded defensive displays over the year.

His 15 clean sheets is one ahead of Dean Henderson at Crystal Palace and Chelsea's Robert Sanchez.

However, none of those three rank in the top six for the percentage of shots saved in the Premier League in 2025. Now-departed Manchester City keeper Ederson leads with 78.1% but he faced considerably fewer shots on target (32) than Sunderland's Robin Roefs, who is second with a 77.5% save percentage from 80 shots.

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has been speaking to the media before Tuesday's Premier League game against Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge (kick-off 19:30 GMT).

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

• Wesley Fofana was benched against Aston Villa "to manage his fitness condition" so he could feature against Bournemouth.

• Maresca said they will need to see how Recce James has recovered before deciding whether he can start again for the Blues on Tuesday, but they "are happy that he's fit".

• Similar to James, Maresca was unable to say whether Cole Palmer will be fit enough to start, while Jorrel Hato is unlikely to be available.

• On the importance of ending the year on a high with a win: "Absolutely - very important. It becomes very important to finish the year in the best way. It will be another tough game because they are all the same, but we need to win games as soon as possible."

• He said his side "lose a little bit of control" when they concede, no matter whether they are winning, drawing or losing and they "need to understand the reason why" to fix it. Maresca added: "I don't think it's random because when something continues to happen, it's not random."

• Securing Champions League football "is the target" for Chelsea this season so Maresca hopes they can narrow the gap at the top of the table to help them achieve that.