Gary Lineker addresses elephant in room about Chelsea's season and nobody else has dared to say it yet

Gary Lineker has given his opinion on Chelsea's unexpected Premier League title challenge this season but Alan Shearer doesn't agree with his fellow pundit.

Chelsea have exceeded expectations under new head coach Enzo Maresca to launch a genuine title bid this season.

They are now second in the Premier League, just four points behind leaders Liverpool, after coming from behind to beat Tottenham 4-3 on Sunday.

Many experts including Lineker and Shearer predicted the Stamford Bridge club would struggle this season after a sixth-place finish in the 2023/24 campaign.

Chelsea co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali had faced widespread criticism over their transfer strategy, with the club spending more than £1.2bn since Clearlake Capital completed its takeover of the club in 2022.

Meanwhile, the club's unusual tactic of handing players lengthy contracts of seven, eight and even nine years, raised eyebrows.

But that all appears to be paying off for the Blues, who are now third favourites with the bookmakers to win the league at 7/1 – bettered only by Liverpool (8/13) and Arsenal (3/1).

Speaking on The Rest Is Football podcast, former England international Lineker admitted he may have got it wrong about Chelsea this season.

He said: "Have we reached the point now… because Chelsea are massively overperforming compared to what all of us thought, have we reached the point… if we go back a few months, or even a year or two, we were all going 'What are the owners doing? They're buying these players, they're spending a fortune, they're giving them these incredibly long contracts, an extraordinarily large squad. How are they going to be able to cope with all this?'

"And now what we're seeing is that they're rotating all the time. He's got so much quality that they can afford to do that. Do we have to say perhaps that we were wrong, and the owners were right?

"At the moment it is starting to look that way. The appointment of Maresca was a really clever one, I think he has done an incredible job under not easy circumstances."

Enzo Maresca hsa impressed many this season (Image: Getty)

However, his fellow podcast host Shearer isn't so sure Chelsea are genuine title challengers and believes things could get tougher for Maresca as the season progresses.

"I think it is working at the minute but once you get into crunch time and into the bigger games, players obviously want to play in those and it becomes more difficult," he added.

"At the minute, where they're basically changing their XI for the cup games, it will become more difficult when you play in the latter stages of the season in the bigger games."

Chelsea next face Astana in the Europa League on Thursday, with Maresca once again expected to rotate his squad against the Kazakh side.

They will then face west London rivals Brentford in the Premier League on Sunday.