Jamie Carragher admits he’s now changed his mind about Chelsea this season

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Jamie Carragher has admitted that he’s changed his mind about Chelsea since the beginning of the season.

There was a lot of uncertainty at Chelsea going into this 2024/25 campaign, largely because of another change in the manager’s dugout. However, Blues head coach Enzo Maresca has made an eye-catching start at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea safely navigated their way through qualifying to reach the Conference League group stages. Also, they thrashed League Two club Barrow 5-0 on Tuesday night to reach the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.

• READ MORE: Three Chelsea players who proved the biggest point to Enzo Maresca against Barrow

Most importantly, the Blues have collected 10 points from five games in the Premier League so far to make it a respectable start.

Chelsea currently sit fifth in the division table in these early stages going into the weekend’s game at home to seventh-placed Brighton. It’s worth remembering that ESPN previously claimed that Maresca has a goal of getting Chelsea a top-four finish.

Jamie Carragher U-turn on Chelsea

Jamie Carragher has held his hands up and confessed that he’s been surprised by Chelsea’s form in the opening phase of the season. In fact, he’s gone from thinking they’re nowhere near top-four contenders to a side right in the mix now.

When discussing Chelsea on The Overlap, Carragher said: “I must say they’ve surprised me a lot. I think especially in the away games.

“You know those types of results where you haven’t watched the game and then someone tells you Wolves away, and you go wow. West Ham was pretty similar. That feels like a really big result.

“I didn’t have [Chelsea] anywhere near the top four at the start of the season or thought you could really challenge it, but it looks like now [Chelsea] could.”

Can they keep up this run?

We’ve seen Chelsea blow teams away from home in recent weeks. So far, they’ve got a 100% win record on the road by winning three out of three. If they’re serious about a Champions League spot, they’ve surely got to be strong at home as well.

We think we’ll know a lot more about Chelsea’s ambitions this season after this next set of six fixtures.

Maresca’s side are about to enter a run of league matches that will show so much about them. If they’re still around the top-four spots come mid-November, we’re confident that this could be a successful year.