Pat Nevin has identified two main things that Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca must fix in his team.
Unfortunately, Chelsea are struggling in recent weeks to find any level of consistency. In the last eight games across all competitions, they recorded three wins, two draws and three defeats.
The Blues squad won’t be winning silverware this season unless they lift the Conference League trophy after they were dumped out of the FA Cup fourth round at the weekend. Many Chelsea players flopped in the cup defeat to Brighton, which only adds to the negative feeling around Stamford Bridge right now.
Even though the club’s form has been shaky in 2024, they do currently sit fourth in the Premier League table.
Pat Nevin urges Chelsea to fix two problem areas
Pat Nevin, who played and starred for Chelsea in the 1980s, has spoken about the current issues at his former club.
He believes that the Blues must find a settled partnership in the heart of defence. On top of that, they need their striker to start scoring again on a regular basis.
“Chelsea currently look like the team wobbling most, with only nine points from the last 24 available. This is not good enough form for a place in the winners’ paddock,” Nevin told the BBC Football Extra email newsletter.
“They need to sort out a settled central defence, that seems to change every single week. A fit and scoring centre forward would help as the extra weight on Cole Palmer will surely slow him down at some point. This made the release of Joao Felix all the more confusing, as he is Palmer’s obvious understudy if the club’s big star gets injured. Worrying times at the Bridge as financially they need Champions League football and they need it soon.”
Without a doubt, the loss in form of Nicolas Jackson in the last couple of months has been a significant factor in Chelsea’s overall dip. The first-choice striker hasn’t scored in his last eight consecutive appearances.
Marc Cucurella insists Chelsea teammate Jackson is still positively contributing, but the numbers don’t make for pretty reading right now. Also, it doesn’t help that there are no outstanding alternatives to replace him as the centre-forward, especially because of Marc Guiu’s ‘bad injury’.
It feels like the Blues are relying on Jackson playing himself back into the kind of form he showed in the opening months of the campaign.
Chelsea changes at centre-back
As mentioned above by Nevin, Chelsea do make a lot of changes in the heart of defence, which is certainly not something you usually see in any top side.
Here is a look at the starting centre-back partnerships for Chelsea in their most recent games…
| Date | Fixture | Competition | Right-sided CB | Left-sided CB |
| 8 February | Brighton 2-1 Chelsea | FA Cup | Tosin Adarabioyo | Trevoh Chalobah |
| 3 February | Chelsea 2-1 West Ham | Premier League | Tosin Adarabioyo | Levi Colwill |
| 25 January | Manchester City 3-1 Chelsea | Premier League | Trevoh Chalobah | Levi Colwill |
| 20 January | Chelsea 3-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers | Premier League | Tosin Adarabioyo | Trevoh Chalobah |
| 14 January | Chelsea 2-2 Bournemouth | Premier League | Josh Acheampong | Levi Colwill |
| 11 January | Chelsea 5-0 Morecambe | FA Cup | Tosin Adarabioyo | Axel Disasi |
| 4 January | Crystal Palace 1-1 Chelsea | Premier League | Josh Acheampong | Levi Colwill |
| 30 December | Ipswich Town 2-0 Chelsea | Premier League | Tosin Adarabioyo | Levi Colwill |
| 26 December | Chelsea 1-2 Fulham | Premier League | Tosin Adarabioyo | Levi Colwill |
Remarkably, Chelsea haven’t started with the same centre-back combination in any game during 2025.
Levi Colwill and Wesley Fofana were impressing as a settled partnership in the early months of the season before the latter’s injury. For Maresca, he simply needs to choose his preferred pairing and stick with them for a run of matches.
