After steaming to the top of the table with a first half of the season which surprised everyone, Chelsea have had their first mini-wobble of the season in the last 7 days.
As always, the Christmas period offers some major challenges, and even the fact we’ve been able to effectively play a B team in the cup competitions didn’t help this week as fatigue set in. So far our strength has been blowing teams from outside the top 6 with just too much speed, energy and firepower, but Everton really effectively bottled us up.
Against Fulham at home we had a great chance to put that right, but in the end the team tired dramatically, the Whites came back into it and ended up turning the game around to leave us defeated. Arsenal took advantage, winning last night to jump above us into second place.
The title race Enzo Maresca was asked about so often was over before it had even really begun. So what are our prospects now? Will this wobble become a major negative spiral, or are we going to put things right immediately and reel off a few wins?
If you were going to use your Coral sign up offer to back the Blues to make it into the top 4 (or even to win the title if you’re really confident), this might be the moment to do it. Our bad results and Arsenal’s improvement has lengthened our odds. If we get back on track against Ipswich and in the games to follow, we will come right back in again.
If we can get a bit of energy back and play like we did in October and November, we should have no problems. After Ipswich on Monday we have Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and then Wolves. Manchester City at the end of January doesn’t look like the scary fixture it was a few months ago.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. After getting 1 point in our last 2 games, even an away trip to Portman Road isn’t a sure thing. Arsenal only got a 1-0 win, and we anticipate a much tougher game than some expect. Under the lights in a game where the home team need to win and will sense a chance to steal points from a wounded Blues team, anything can happen. The fact that Enzo Maresca will need to rotate the team a little too isn’t going to help either.
