Chelsea teetering on crisis: Seven problems Enzo Maresca must fix to stop the Blues' season drifting into mediocrity

It's Chelsea's inability to overcome the teams that, on paper, they should be beating that has cost them dearly so far this season, with the agonising late home defeat to newly-promoted Sunderland at the weekend just the latest example of Maresca's side failing to impose themselves as favourites.

The Blues have now dropped points in uninspiring performances against Crystal Palace, Brentford, Manchester United (when Ruben Amorim's men were in the depths of their early-season woes), Brighton and the Black Cats, with the latter three results all defeats. Those struggles were belied, though, by the rousing victory over champions Liverpool before the October international break.

The head coach is acutely aware they need to find some consistency, regardless of the opposition. "For sure, if you want to be there (a top team), you need consistency, something that winning four in a row and today’s game (against Sunderland), you can probably show that," Maresca said in the wake of the latest disappointment. "But because we lost points, we did not show that.

"If we can have that level (raises his hand high in the air) and this level (drops his hand much lower), probably it is better to have something in between. I think overall, since we started (the season), we performed much better compared to today’s game. We were not good enough. We did not create a lot, apart from the goal probably, and we struggled. We need our players to perform 100 per cent."

To make matters worse, the draw with Palace and defeats to Brighton and Sunderland all came at Stamford Bridge, while Chelsea were wholly unconvincing in the fortunate home wins over Fulham in the Premier League and Benfica in the Champions League. A home league record of two wins, one draw and two defeats simply isn't good enough.

Long gone are the days when Jose Mourinho made the Bridge an impregnable fortress across his two spells in the dugout, going 60 and later 77 home games unbeaten, but the Blues - and indeed their fans - must find a way to make their opponents fear visiting their stadium once again.

Perhaps a hangover from the club's struggles in recent years since the Boehly-Clearlake takeover, the atmosphere at the Bridge can sour quickly if things aren't going Chelsea's way. The collective groans and bursts of frustration from the stands visibly sap the confidence of the players on the pitch, with the young squad undoubtedly finding it difficult to step up in the face of vociferous criticism from their own supporters.

The victory over Liverpool - Chelsea's best performance of the season so far by some distance - demonstrated the power of their home crowd as Maresca's men were willed over the line by a raucous atmosphere that fuelled a late onslaught, eventually yielding a euphoric injury-time winner from Estevao Willian.

So far this season, Chelsea have developed an unwanted reputation for being slow starters, with their sluggishness out of the blocks enabling their opponents to get on top of them and set the tone.

That was the case against West Ham, Fulham, Brentford and Manchester United, as well as Nottingham Forest and Ajax more recently, with an early red card for the Dutch giants significantly aiding their cause in that Champions League clash.

With the youngest squad in the Premier League, the widely-held view is that Chelsea lack the experience and know-how to manage games for the full 90 minutes, and the need to rotate because of injuries and the more demanding schedule are certainly playing their part following the club's return to the Champions League, but the Blues still must find a way to impose themselves early in games and use that momentum. Too often they are finding their supposed authority undermined from the first whistle.

It's well documented that discipline has been a serious and debilitating issue for Chelsea in the opening few months of 2025-26, with the Blues ridiculously seeing red in four out of the six games they played in all competitions between September 20 and October 18.

Those misdemeanours were particularly costly in the consecutive league defeats to Manchester United and Brighton; Robert Sanchez was dismissed just five minutes into the former at Old Trafford with the scores goalless after charging out of his goal and clattering into Bryan Mbeumo, while Trevoh Chalobah was sent off for a last-man foul early in the second period in the latter when Chelsea were 1-0 up.

On both occasions, Maresca's side were unable to cope with the one-man deficit, as United went on to establish an insurmountable first-half lead and Brighton pulled level late on before bagging a stoppage-time winner of their own.

Having initially insisted Chelsea's indiscipline wasn't a problem, the head coach admitted after the most recent incident (Malo Gusto's needless red card at Nottingham Forest): "It's something that we can do better. The last one (Gusto's) is completely avoidable, because it’s 0-3, the game is finished. For sure there is something that we have to improve."

This is largely out of Chelsea's control, of course, but injuries certainly haven't helped their case either as the season begins to gather pace. Having avoided the kind of injury crisis last term that crippled them in Mauricio Pochettino's one and only campaign at the helm in 2023-24, they are once again juggling a raft of fitness issues this time around.

Cole Palmer is the most notable absentee, with the club now suffering the consequences of twice rushing their talisman back from a niggling groin problem that arose during the summer at the Club World Cup. He's only made four appearances all season. Indeed, the Blues are undoubtedly paying for their success at that tournament as a whole, with the attacker joined on the sidelines by Liam Delap, Dario Essugo, Benoit Badiashile and Levi Colwill. Thankfully, Delap is on the verge of a comeback, while Palmer and Badiashile should be back in contention in a little over a month and Essugo should return in the New Year.

That will help to ease the pressure on a squad that has suddenly looked thin in certain areas, with Delap able to give Joao Pedro a break up front, Essugo able to deputise for Moises Caicedo in midfield, Badiashile bolstering a depleted backline and Palmer, of course, injecting the kind of creativity Maresca admitted his side "lacked" after the Sunderland defeat. Colwill, unfortunately, is likely to miss the entire season after undergoing surgery on a dreaded ACL injury.

The head coach has even revealed that there is a group of players who are currently playing through the pain barrier. "Joao [Pedro] has not been training every day because he is managing a little bit, himself, from an injury. Moi [Caicedo] is the same, Enzo [Fernandez] is exactly the same," he said. "We have four or five players that, unfortunately, because of some problems, they cannot work every day."

Colwill's untimely injury on the eve of the new season has caused Maresca a significant headache at the back, with the head coach rotating through various different centre-back combinations to find the right formula in his absence. Chalobah has been the most regular starter, with Josh Acheampong, Tosin Adarabioyo or Wesley Fofana joining him. Badiashile had figured and was in good form before suffering his own injury issue.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the result has been some disjointed performances at the back, with no real partnerships forming while individual errors and haphazard collective defending cost Chelsea in a number of matches in which they have dropped points so far this season.

With Fofana still being eased back from injury, the Blues are perhaps paying the price for not bringing in an experienced, top-level centre-back in the summer transfer window. If we're being brutally honest, none of their current options inspire as much confidence as Colwill.

Maresca has plenty on his hands, then, but he will have a huge opportunity to get Chelsea back on track in the space of 90 minutes at the weekend. After all, there is no better tonic than getting one over on your fiercest rivals in the modern era. The Blues will cross the English capital to face Tottenham on Saturday, and as they teeter on a mini-crisis, this represents an early-season must-win for a side that has fallen behind it's big-hitting Premier League rivals.

Maresca has a 100% record in his two meetings with Spurs so far, and another victory in north London on this occasion could well be the shot in the arm Chelsea need to breath new life into their stuttering campaign.