Gareth Bale makes bold Premier League title prediction after Chelsea Club World Cup win

Gareth Bale has backed Chelsea to challenge for the Premier League title following their emphatic win over Paris Saint-Germain in the Club World Cup final. Cole Palmer fired the Blues to a 3-0 victory at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday evening, dismantling the French giants against all the odds.

Palmer broke the deadlock inside the opening half an hour, sliding the ball past Gianluigi Donnarumma into the bottom far corner of his net. A few moments later, the 23-year-old attacking midfielder doubled Chelsea's lead with an identical strike from just outside the box.

Shortly before half-time, Palmer set up Joao Pedro, who put the third and final nail in the Parisians' coffin with a delightful chip. The west Londoners toyed with Luis Enrique's side in the second half and held onto their clean sheet.

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Speaking on DAZN after the game, Bale heaped great praise on Chelsea. On if Enzo Maresca's side could challenge for the Premier League title, the Tottenham Hotspur icon said: "I do not think they are far away at all.

"Last season, they got to around Christmas, and everyone was talking about them being contenders. Obviously, they are a young team, and they kind of fell off, but I think they will learn a lot from that.

"They have shown character as a team to come back and win the Conference League, and now win this. I think confidence will be booming and they will have that self-belief now."

Last season, Chelsea enjoyed a brilliant start, climbing to second in the English top flight. At one stage, the Blues were considered to be potential title contenders.

Unfortunately for Maresca, though, the west Londoners had a bit of a wobble during the festive period and they fell well behind Liverpool. Despite injuries to key players and a quiet January transfer window, Chelsea managed to finish fourth and qualify for the Champions League.

Toward the end of the campaign, the Blues enjoyed a 3-1 win over Liverpool. Speaking to reporters after the game, Arne Slot was asked whether Maresca's side could be a threat to his title defence.

The Reds manager said: "I expected them to be a threat this season because at Anfield they were better than us. They were so close to us. It was a complete surprise to me that we are now 19 points clear of them or something like that.

"I didn't feel that at all when we played them. That tells you how well we did, probably, if a team like this with so much quality, and also not only in the first XI, but in the complete squad, that we are able to be 19 points ahead of them is a big compliment for our players."

Slot was very complimentary of Chelsea when they visited Anfield back in October 2024. The Blues gave Liverpool a run for their money, marginally losing 2-1.

Speaking to reporters after his first meeting with the Blues, Slot said: "I don’t think we outplayed Chelsea, we certainly didn’t. I think they were more dominant than us with the ball.

"In an ideal world, I would have seen us dominate the complete game like we did in so many other games. We are not there yet but the good thing about this team and the result was that if you face a team like Chelsea, you see a team that is fighting for every centimetre and for every moment and that is what we did.

"I’m hoping in the future, hopefully in the near future, that when we play a game like this we are more dominant than we were against Chelsea. But that probably says a lot about Chelsea as well."