2023-24 season

The **2023–24 season** was Douglas Van Dougal's first full season in charge of Chelsea. The blues won the Premier League on the final day of the season, as well as the FA Cup and Europa League, marking a successful full debut season for Van Dougal.

## Overview

### Summer

The summer was marked by the departure of Mason Mount, who was sold to FC Barcelona for £133,000,000 in July. It was reported that Van Dougal was initially resistant to Barcelona's advances on the homegrown talent, but eventually the club settled for their record sale fee, with a promise to reinvest. Some of the signings Van Dougal made in the summer window included James Justin, Nikola Vlasic, Ibañez, Ugurcan Çakir and Chelsea Academy graduate Fikayo Tomori, all for a combined fee of £368 million. Other than Mason Mount, Chelsea sold American forward Christian Pulisic to Milan for £88 million.

Chelsea opened their Premier League campaign with a 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford, but then defeated rivals Tottenham Hotspur 7-0 at Stamford Bridge, the largest victory margin achieved by Chelsea in the Premier League era, as well as Spurs's biggest defeat. Tottenham Hotspur would go on to sack their manager Marco Bielsa and eventually finish 11th. After a 2-2 draw at the London Stadium to West Ham, Chelsea went on a three-match winning streak, scoring 3 goals in each win against Wolverhampton, Sheffield United and Newcastle. Chelsea drew Legia Warsaw, Osijek and Schalke in their Europa League group, defeating the latter in their opening match in the competition. Van Dougal's Chelsea also defeated Middlesborough 3-1 in their first EFL Cup game but later that week lost their second Premier League game against an in-form Southampton who were being managed by Steven Gerard.

### Autumn

Chelsea continued to dominate their Europa League group with wins against Legia Warsaw and Croatian team Osijek, winning the latter game 6-0. On October 8, Chelsea beat Liverpool 5-2 at home, with a hat-trick from Faustino Anjorin, his first for his boyhood club, however, two games later they lost to Manchester City 2-1 and Hakim Ziyech suffered a twisted ankle which would leave him sidelined for 3 weeks. Following their defeat at the Etihad, Chelsea went on to win all but one of their 6 matches in November; this included two further Europa League wins and a 4-0 victory against Aston Villa in the EFL Cup. In the 2-2 draw at home against Arsenal, right-back James Justin suffered a sprained knee ligament and was sidelined for 5 weeks.

Chelsea had a busy December schedule, with 8 matches played across 3 competitions. Despite the heavy load of game time, the blues once again managed not to suffer a single defeat. After two poor performances in the Premier League against Aston Villa and Brighton resulting in 2 draws, Chelsea finished the calendar year with 6 wins on the bounce in which they scored 21 goals and only conceded 1. This purple patch included a 3-0 EFL Cup quarter-final victory away to Brentford and a 4-1 win against first-position team Everton at their new Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium.

### Winter

In Chelsea's New Year Premier League fixture, they beat Manchester United 2-0 at Stamford Bridge and would go on to win their first FA Cup game against Millwall, and another in the first leg of their EFL Cup semi-final fixture at home to Liverpool. On Chelsea's away game to Spurs, they were beaten 3-1, but would go on to defeat West Ham, Wolves and Sheffield United in the Premier League without conceding. The blues knocked out Luton Town from the FA Cup in a 3-0 win before heading to Anfield for the second leg of the EFL Cup semi-final. Liverpool took the match to Chelsea, with Antony scoring on the stroke of half-time to put the fixture level with an away-goal advantage to the blues. A second goal from Antony in the 88th minute meant Liverpool would secure victory but in the 2nd minute of injury time, after a low cross into the box from Lautaro Martinez, a Vlasic strike on the Liverpool goal was deflected by Virgil Van Dijk and away from the Liverpool keeper to end up in the back of the net, sending the match to penalties which Chelsea subsequently lost. Liverpool would go on to win the final match against Manchester United.