It’s the same story every year these days – we expect Chelsea to compete in a title race, but by March it’s actually turned into a battle for the Champions League places.
This year was supposed to be so different. Two of our top rivals for the top 5 had dreadful starts to the season. Manchester United sacked Ruben Amorim, and Liverpool spent half the season genuinely looking like they might sack Arne Slot.
Meanwhile, Tottenham are genuinely at risk of relegation.
With all that in mind, it should have been plain sailing to qualify for Champions League football. In November, it felt like things would have to go seriously wrong for us to miss out. Well, they have gone seriously wrong. Enzo Maresca was sacked, and after an initial bump under Liam Rosenior, Chelsea’s latest results have been poor.
Since beating West Ham at the end of January, a moment where we were looking above us in the table at the top 2, not down, there’s been a slump. We’ve lost to Newcastle and Arsenal, drawn with Leeds and Burnley, and only beaten Wolves and Aston Villa.
The fact we’ve been beaten an additional four times in the Champions League and Carabao Cup in that time only adds to the sense that things are going horribly wrong.
Chelsea’s stats in that period have shown where the problems are. We’re conceding too many goals, with just one clean sheet since late January. Joao Pedro’s hot streak kept us scoring, but not that’s died away we really look lacking up front too.
A team low on confidence and running out of gas is now stumbling towards the finishing line, and it won’t take much to finish us off. Lose to Everton on Saturday night and it might already be over.
All we can do is go game by game. We need to get 3 points by any means necessary, then dig in for a nasty double header against Man U and Man City in April.
By the end of that United game on the 18th of April we will likely definitively know if our top 5 chase is dead or alive. But even if we’re still in the race, it will be far from over. A game against Liverpool in May will then become the focus.
For as much as we’d like to be comfortably placed and looking ahead to Europe next year, there’s no denying it’s exciting to have everything on the line with 8 games to go.
