Chelsea are into February, having navigated one of the most chaotic Januaries in memory.
It started with a bang, it’s fair to say. Blues woke up on January 1st to the stunning news that manager Enzo Maresca had left the club. Not the ideal start to a month with a silly number of fixtures in.
But the club have navigated it well, and we head toward February on a high, having beaten Napoli in Naples to save a Champions League campaign which had had some wobbles along the way.
After a couple of games under caretaker Calum McFarlane, Liam Rosenior was appointed, and he’s lost just once in his time in charge so far. Five wins and one defeat from your opening six games is about as strong a record as a new coach can hope for.
It’s especially satisfying that Rosenior has managed to pick up wins in all 4 competitions already too, adding to the sense that he’s moving the season forward on all fronts.
So where does the Blues season go from here? Fans in Florida may be using FL digital gaming to entertain themselves between matches, but they still won’t have time for too many roulette spins in the next few weeks – games are still coming thick and fast.
The good news is that the win over Napoli, combined with favourable results elsewhere, got the Blues into the top 8 in the Champions League.
That means they got to avoid a two-legged playoff in February. That provides two precious midweeks where Liam Rosenior can get his hands on his players. But it’s still a chaotic run from now until the March international break – don’t think it’s going to be easy.
We face West Ham, closing out a hectic January which had 9 games. February won’t be much better. It starts with our League Cup semi final second leg against Arsenal on Tuesday night, then rolls through league fixtures against Wolves, Leeds and Burnley.
There’s also an FA Cup game against Hull City in the mix.
That’s 5 games – a major step down from January’s 9. Just imagine had we not come back to win against Napoli however. We’d be up to 7 games, and poor Rosenior would be heading into his third month in charge with barely a single proper training session to his name.
Those league games are also pretty winnable, at least by Premier League standards. We could be sitting here in a month’s time sitting very pretty indeed.
