With the 2025/26 season fast approaching, club historian Rick Glanvill and club statistician Paul Dutton have prepared this primer with everything you need to know. The focus today is on the competitions we will contest...
The Blues' 34th Premier League season, 91st in the top flight, and 110th overall begins at Stamford Bridge this weekend against Crystal Palace – and comes just 35 days after our last campaign finished with victory in the Club World Cup.
Last season was another double-winning campaign for the Blues, who are FIFA’s undisputed world champions for the next four years. We also became the first club ever to have claimed all four UEFA crowns by triumphing in the Conference League.
Now, with floodlit Champions League midweeks returning to the Bridge, Enzo Maresca enters his second season at Stamford Bridge as the joint-fourth most successful manager in our history in terms of major honours won.
The Italian's judicious rotation in UEFA’s third-tier competition had the knock-on effect of keeping players fresher for success in the race for the Premier League’s top four, as well as FIFA’s summer jamboree.
No doubt the step-up to UEFA’s elite level will present more of a challenge, although beating 2024/25’s last-16 contestants Benfica 4-1 in the Club World Cup, then European champions Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 in the final, suggested the Blues will not look out of place.
Team-building, tactical experiments, and several key summer recruits have already been acclimatised during the USA tournament, and later arrivals Jamie Gittens and Estevao have armed Maresca with plenty of fresh options.
What’s new: Premier League
Chelsea are one of six ever-present members of the Premier League, which is about to enter its 34th season. Fixtures are subject to change, but at the outset, 33 rounds of matches will be played over weekends and five in midweek.
Club World Cup champions aside, the mid-August start date permitted 83 days off since the close of the 2024/25 top-flight campaign. This season will finish on 24 May 2026, ahead of the call-up period for next summer’s World Cup.
The Africa Cup of Nations, delayed from the summer because of a clash with the Club World Cup, will now be contested in Morocco from 21 December to 18 January. It means several clubs could be without squad members for a month or more in a busy domestic period.
Our previous Premier League campaign ended with back-to-back victories, and we look to extend that run from this Sunday.
London was a happy hunting ground during the run-in, with ten of our last 12 league fixtures played in the capital, and that trend continues with four straight derbies from the outset, with visits by Crystal Palace and Fulham and short trips to West Ham and Brentford.
When the FA Cup holders play at Stamford Bridge, it will be their second opening-day visit in five seasons. The Blues have won each of our previous three season-openers against capital rivals, and overcame the Eagles 3-0 on the opening day in 2021.
Promotion restored Premier League status for Burnley, Leeds and Sunderland, raising the Blues’ away travel mileage to 4,885 as closer-to-home Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton surrendered their share certificates after relegation.
Last season, Chelsea claimed just one point from a possible six against Town, but won every encounter with the other two.
Our previous meetings with Leeds earned three points in 2022/23, while against the Clarets two seasons ago it was four. We scooped all six against the Black Cats during their last Premier League season (2016/17).
The UK will witness the biggest ever expansion of live TV coverage of the top flight this season, with around 270 games shown in each of the next four years.
The Blues, who finished fourth last season, have won the league title five times since the reformatting in 1992/93, most recently in 2016/17.
All-time Premier League wins
Games | Wins | |
---|---|---|
1. Manchester United | 1266 | 755 |
2. Arsenal | 1266 | 693 |
3. Liverpool | 1266 | 677 |
4. Chelsea | 1266 | 677 |
5. Tottenham | 1266 | 551 |
6. Man City | 1076 | 550 |
7. Everton | 1266 | 450 |
What’s new: Champions League
This will be Chelsea’s 20th season in the Champions League since 1999/00, but our first since 2022/23 and in its new format.
Instead of six games against three group opponents before Christmas, the Blues will face eight different teams in one-off fixtures, evenly split home and away, and ending in late January.
For the league stage draw on 28 August, each of the 36 entrants will be placed in one of four seeding pots and matched with two teams from each.
Success in the Conference League left Chelsea seventh in UEFA’s club coefficient rankings on 109.00. So the Blues will be in Pot 1 (along with fellow English sides Liverpool and Man City). Arsenal sit in Pot 2, Spurs in Pot 3, and Newcastle in Pot 4. Clubs from the same association cannot play each other in this phase.
Teams finishing in the top eight of the overall league table in January go straight through to the Round of 16. Positions eight to 24 face an extra two-legged play-off round, and those placed 25-36 are eliminated. Clubs no longer drop into the Europa League.
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE MATCHDAYS
1 - 16-18 September
2 - 30 September-1 October
3 - 21-22 October
4 - 4-5 November
5 - 25-26 November
6 - 9-10 December
7 - 20-21 January
8 - 28 January
TNT Sports hold the rights to show every Champions League game live in the UK, except for one selected by Prime Video each Tuesday.
The final will be played at Puskas Arena, Budapest, Hungary, on 30 May 2026.
Precisely 120 years to the month before next year’s final in Budapest, Chelsea’s first-ever post-season tour took the club to the Hungarian capital for three matches, all wins, in May 1906.
TOTAL EUROPEAN/WORLD TROPHIES WON
Total | Most recent | |
---|---|---|
Liverpool | 14 | 2019 |
Chelsea | 11 | 2025 |
Man United | 8 | 2017 |
Tottenham | 4 | 2025 |
Man City | 4 | 2023 |
West Ham | 3 | 2023 |
Nottingham Forest | 3 | 1980 |
Newcastle | 2 | 2006 |
Arsenal | 2 | 1994 |
Aston Villa | 2 | 1982 |
Leeds | 2 | 1971 |
What’s new: FA Cup
This will be our 111th participation in a competition we have won eight times, most recently in 2017/18.
In the UK, TNT Sports and the BBC will broadcast more live FA Cup games than ever before.
As usual, Chelsea will join the competition in the third round, which will be played over the weekend of 10/11 January 2026. The draw for third round fixtures will take place after matches played over the weekend of 6/7 December.
Wembley will host the final on Saturday 16 May 2026, and the winners qualify for the Europa League.
Chelsea have lost six successive cup finals at Wembley – but won all six contested abroad in that time.
What’s new: League Cup
With nine Premier League sides involved in Europe, this competition will feature a preliminary qualifying round for the first time since 2011.
Chelsea’s 66th League Cup campaign will begin in round three, with the draw taking place after the completion of round two matches played on 26/27 August.
To accommodate clubs’ European commitments, third-round fixtures will again be split over two weeks: 16/17 and 23/24 September.
The final will be at Wembley on Sunday 22 March 2026. The winners gain entrance to the UEFA Conference League.
Chelsea have won the League Cup five times, and are London’s original (1964/65) and most recent (2014/15) winners.
What’s new: Club World Cup
This quadrennial 32-team competition will not be held again until 2029, meaning Chelsea are world champions until (at least) then. In the meantime, the old Club World Cup format will continue, renamed the Intercontinental Cup.
Chelsea’s home and away shirts for 2025/26 had a highly successful debut at the Club World Cup, and as victors we now have the honour of wearing a ‘FIFA World Champions’ roundel badge until 2029.
Following our original success in the competition in February 2022, the Blues were allowed to wear the winners’ shield emblem from Burnley away on 5 March and for the remainder of that Premier League season.
What’s new: Rule changes
Officials in this season’s Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup will have the benefit of Semi-Automated Offside Technology (SAOT), introduced late last season, and referees can explain their VAR review decision over the stadium sound system.
Only a captain may now approach a referee to discuss a decision; a double-kick by a player from the penalty spot will now result in a retake; and a goalkeeper has no longer than eight seconds to hold the ball, otherwise a corner for their opponents can be awarded.
If play is stopped, such as when the ball strikes the referee, the drop-ball will be awarded to the team who had the last touch, unless that happened inside the penalty area, in which case the defending goalkeeper restarts play.
A player or coach off the field of play touching the ball will no longer automatically be shown a card.
The International Football Association Board (IFAB) will continue testing referee bodycams.
- In part two tomorrow, we will look at Chelsea's summer activity and the anniversaries ahead...