Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has suggested Chelsea have the ingredients to stay in the Premier League title conversation this season, with their schedule standing out as a major factor.<\/p>\n
Arteta pointed to the contrast between Chelsea and other leading sides, noting that while Arsenal, Manchester City and the rest of the frontrunners will have European fixtures to manage alongside league commitments, Chelsea will go into their Premier League matches with more time to recover. In his view, that added breathing room could matter over the course of a campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they have every ingredient to be in the highest part of the table,\u201d Arteta explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowing [Xabi Alonso], knowing the history of the club, the quality of the squad that they have, the schedule that they are going to face in relation to other teams … it is very, very possible that is going to be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chelsea would have preferred to be in the Champions League this season, and any supposed benefit from not being in Europe would be secondary to the prestige and financial strength that comes with competing at that level. For now, though, they must work with the situation they have.<\/p>\n
That means no European midweek demands and, potentially, a stronger focus on domestic football. Arteta\u2019s argument is that this should not be dismissed. A lighter calendar can become a significant advantage, especially when rivals are stretched across multiple competitions.<\/p>\n
Last season offered a clear example of how workload can shape a campaign. Arsenal played 63 matches, reaching the finals of both the Carabao Cup and Champions League, as well as the quarterfinals of the FA Cup. That was four more than Chelsea and 23 more than Manchester United, who had no European fixtures and went out of the domestic cups early.<\/p>\n
Manchester United then showed how a reduced schedule can sharpen league form. After leaving the FA Cup in January, they lost only two league matches and finished third. Across the 17 games after that exit, they collected three more Premier League points than Arsenal, a pace that would have matched a title-winning run had it lasted across the full season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta believes Chelsea’s lighter schedule could help them stay in the Premier League title race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,190,179,172],"tags":[1836,1162,1047],"class_list":["post-19187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-chelsea","category-manchester-united","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}