Same as last year.

What are your expectations and the poll is asking where do you think we will realistically end up?

My expectations are 4th, coming off a very positive CWC win and european trophy we should retain that 4th spot and potentially push for 3rd if City slip up. We need to really claim that 4th spot and become a consistent name in the champions league for the next few seasons. Those are my expectations but in reality I think we're going to have a real tough time battling to finish 4th again. There's been a lot of turbulence around the clubs challenging for the 4th spot so that brings inconsistency and even though his football sends me to sleep it's a good thing we're going into a new season with the same manager.

I'll stick with 4th but can see it being a last game of the season situation drama.

Edited September 1, 2025Sep 1 by Sheva

3rd.

With what the Scouse have spent on top of the squad they had anything less than unbeaten and a quadruple is a failure.

Eze takes Arsenal to the next level but Arteta will always be too scared to ‘lose’ which inevitably leads to them not winning games they should.

We have the squad to win the title but Enzo’s stubbornness and insistence on Palmer through the middle will cost us eventually. Estevao should develop as the season goes on into the world beater he is destined to become and a full season for RJ are the main goals. Last 16 of the CL & a domestic trophy I feel would legitimise the CWC win in certain areas of the media.

City are finished and will part with Pep end of the year. Villa have been decimated. Newcastle have downgraded so badly from Isak. Forest will self implode thanks to Marinakis.

What I will say is a massive advancement on last season is how much more likeable our squad is. Yes we’re still stuck with Fofana but shipping out Jackson, Madueke & Nkunku makes us so less sulky and dislikable. I actually like more members of the squad than I don’t which hasn’t been a thing the past few years.

I put us in second, however I really expect 3rd. Arsenal are too deep into their process while we are at the start. Next year will be our year, I can feel it.

Liverpool spend £417m on top of an already experienced side, so I expect them to dominate the league and CL.

3rd ahead of city is they keep struggling, 4th if they pull themselves together.

Pool and Arsenal will be too consistent over 38 games for us to move past.

3rd/4th in the league, domestic trophy win and 1/4 finals in the CL.

Echo above.

3rd is likely the best we can achieve. At the very least we need to have a comfortable Top 4 finish given how Villa, Newcastle, and Forest have regressed. Arsenal and Liverpool's deals this summer were very much a win now window.

Need to have deep and serious cup runs. These players shouldn't ever lose the taste of winning if we want to grow.

Would love to see a title challenge. We've not really performed in the first three games but still have 7 points from 9. Keep that up and that 86 points come end of the season. I've voted for 2nd optimistically.

Also voted for 2nd.

Will probably depend on having Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro available for most of the season. If they both make 30+ starts then I think we'll have enough quality to get clear of Arsenal, City etc. and hopefully we can compete with Liverpool for the actual title this year as well. I think the squad is as capable as any other out there, just hope Maresca gets sufficiently out of the way to let the players play !

This feels like the type of season that 80-85 points could be enough to win it.

Liverpool have got a lot of players in and that's a big risk as well as opportunity for them

I dont rate Arsenal at all and no idea what is happening at City.

Im slightly worried Tottenham might surprise a few this year, and this could well be one of those weird seasons where they end up winning the title and it's talked about for decades and I start looking at bridges to jump off.

I sadly voted 5th, its our defence, they are all over the place, If any player runs at them there is mass panic, we have gotten away with it so far but any decent team is going to walk through us, with the usual 2 unmarked players in the box. 😕

Just impossible to predict. If we had a top keeper, Colwill hadn't got injured and we stay injury free so have the likes of Palmer, Pedro, Caicedo James, Delap etc fit and in top form, I feel we should be challenging for the title. But we haven't got a great keeper and we've already started getting injuries so who knows, but top 4 is a MUST, regardless.

Our pre season has been sh*t. We have shown our true colours. We are interested in money making not sporting success.

The fact that some fans celebrate this is the sadest thing for me. Death of a football club.

Who cares where we finish…..did you see our net spend??

7 hours ago, bisright1 said:

This feels like the type of season that 80-85 points could be enough to win it.

Liverpool have got a lot of players in and that's a big risk as well as opportunity for them

I dont rate Arsenal at all and no idea what is happening at City.

Im slightly worried Tottenham might surprise a few this year, and this could well be one of those weird seasons where they end up winning the title and it's talked about for decades and I start looking at bridges to jump off.

It’s Spurs. They lost it to Leicester 😂

17 hours ago, C3blue said:

Our pre season has been sh*t. We have shown our true colours. We are interested in money making not sporting success.

The fact that some fans celebrate this is the sadest thing for me. Death of a football club.

Who cares where we finish…..did you see our net spend??

I know there's a tendency on people these days to look at the negative in everything they love

But I have to ask. How was our pre season sh*t?

Top 4 is compulsory.

Top is so difficult and 2nd 3rd 4th are all the same to me

So im going for 4th nothing less will do.

11 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

I know there's a tendency on people these days to look at the negative in everything they love

But I have to ask. How was our pre season sh*t?

I expect he means the lack of down time after we finished the WCC and the pretty much non existent pre season training before the season started.

51 minutes ago, dkw said:

I expect he means the lack of down time after we finished the WCC and the pretty much non existent pre season training before the season started.

It's not exactly the fault of the club or leadership that we didn't have a pre-season though. Only way to have a proper pre season whilst giving the players a break would be to pull out of the CWC. That would have been stupid, as because of the CWC we can call ourselves champions of the world!

I have to agree with bisright1 here. Looking at a the negatives only, rather than the positives: Won CWC, currently on a positive run of form (last 10 pl games, 7 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss) signed a significant improvement on Jackson in Pedro (and Delap), building a winning mentality. Is that what is meant by showing our true colours?

Realistically 3rd is the best we can get. Liverpool and Arsenal are stronger than us. City are a bit hit and miss, but they always finish top 4 anyway. The rest could be anywhere from 5th to 17th pretty much.

1 hour ago, dkw said:

I expect he means the lack of down time after we finished the WCC and the pretty much non existent pre season training before the season started.

I would understand that if it wasn't surrounded by a blame narrative of our board are incompetent 😂

1 hour ago, bisright1 said:

I know there's a tendency on people these days to look at the negative in everything they love

But I have to ask. How was our pre season sh*t?

What I mean is for all the player juggling how much have we improved the team?

If you asked 50,000 Chelsea fans to write a list of 5 players they would like the club to sign this summer how many of our actual signings would be on it?

JP has started well but signing a 10-15 goal a season forward from Brighton is hardly sending chills down our rivals spines. Everything else has been like for like or more ones for the future.

We could have added a world class experienced spine for all our player trading and given this young team a chance to compete but they didn’t.

I feel this summer has seen us fall further behind our rivals not close the gap. Obviously it depends on how the signings work out but on paper our rivals squads have improved while ours was more sideways stepping.

The club refuse to sign players they feel they can’t make money on, this is their true colours. Money motivates their every move, if the player improves the team or not is irrelevant.

I’ve always felt the best way to build a squad is to improve the first team, the player forced out the side then becomes the back up. We don’t seem to do that.

Stagnation: 4th

34 minutes ago, C3blue said:

I’ve always felt the best way to build a squad is to improve the first team, the player forced out the side then becomes the back up. We don’t seem to do that.

^^^^ This in spades ^^^^

A more comfortable 4th place. If we get really lucky with results elsewhere we could finish 3rd.

7 hours ago, C3blue said:

What I mean is for all the player juggling how much have we improved the team?

If you asked 50,000 Chelsea fans to write a list of 5 players they would like the club to sign this summer how many of our actual signings would be on it?

JP has started well but signing a 10-15 goal a season forward from Brighton is hardly sending chills down our rivals spines. Everything else has been like for like or more ones for the future.

We could have added a world class experienced spine for all our player trading and given this young team a chance to compete but they didn’t.

I feel this summer has seen us fall further behind our rivals not close the gap. Obviously it depends on how the signings work out but on paper our rivals squads have improved while ours was more sideways stepping.

The club refuse to sign players they feel they can’t make money on, this is their true colours. Money motivates their every move, if the player improves the team or not is irrelevant.

I’ve always felt the best way to build a squad is to improve the first team, the player forced out the side then becomes the back up. We don’t seem to do that.

Thats one model but it's not ours. It's not going to change.

We're signing players who will become our spine. Caicedo, Palmer, Cucurella and Pedro are that spine. Colwill would be that if he hadn't been injured and I think Chalobah is severely underrated, I'd rather him than signing a 27 year old who might have done well in another league.

Who do you wish we had signed?

We will have a drop off due to our involvement in the CWC. Expecting it around Nov/ Dec, how long it lasts will determine the season plus keeping injury free to key players, CB being a particular worry. Hoping for better but realistically 4th, if it’s tight it could drop to 5/6th