We couldn’t believe Chelsea were on Monday Night Football last night – in feels like we’re on there every week.
It has in fact been 5 games this season, and curiously we’ve picked up 5 wins in those games, as the Chelsea official Twitter account proudly pointed out after the game. Fulham, Palace, Spurs, Newcastle and last night Everton have all been dispatched on a weeknight by Mauricio Pochettino’s Blues.
If we’re not mistakes, all 5 of those games have been Premier League matches. Meaning that of our 31 games played, 5 have been Monday night matches, more than 16%.
It’s frustrating for fans, but clearly good for the players – maybe next season we could arrange to have 25 games on Mondays. At this rate, we’d be on for the league title if that was the case.
Big game lovers
Nizaar Kinsella noted the same thing in a quote Tweet of the stat above.
His “loose theory” was that “Chelsea… enjoy playing both night games and on TV.”
He posited that this was to do with the way that the atmosphere at Stamford Bridge was that much better on a weeknight game than on a standard afternoon kick off.
It has certainly been noted that we’ve had our best results and our best performances in our games against the big teams in the league, and that would make sense in this context too – those games are the ones that get moved to evenings and Sundays.
It's a bit of a loose theory but I feel there's a strange character to this Chelsea team where they enjoy playing both night games and on TV. It's also part of the make up of Stamford Bridge which gets more up for the night matches. The stats also say #CFC play well after 7pm. https://t.co/ka6zbpvejt
— Nizaar Kinsella (@NizaarKinsella) April 16, 2024
Our failings have come in the sleepy Saturday 3pms against smaller sides, where we seem to switch off.
While we’re happy to see the players aren’t intimidated by playing under the lights against major opposition, we hope we’ve not managed to build a team which can only be bothered to perform when it’s on TV. Leagues are won and lost in the weekly grind, it’s not just about getting your hair looking good for the cameras.
