Other teams are preparing for the start of the Champions League tonight – but Chelsea are not among them at the moment.
The Blues do have European football, but only in the UEFA Europa Conference League, which doesn’t start until next week. That gives us a full clear training week to prepare for our game against West Ham this weekend.
Having just got back from the international break, it’s tedious to think there’s another one coming up in October, but the run of games leading up to it looks like the perfect chance to really get our season up and running.
For one thing, all 4 games we have before the next international period are at home. That means minimal travel, and hopefully a chance to really get Stamford Bridge onside with this new team. All four of them are very winnable – after West Ham away on Saturday, we don’t play away from Stamford Bridge until the 20th of October, when we face Liverpool.
Chelsea can take big leap forward on all fronts
The 4 home games before that, against Barrow in the Carabao Cup, Brighton and Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, and Gent in the Conference League, are all matches we expect to win. Forest and Brighton have had good starts to the season, and there are no easy games in the Premier League of course, but if this team wants to make a serious push for the Champions League those matches have to be 3 points, especially at Stamford Bridge.
4 wins from 4 would create a real buzz, regardless of the opposition, and given 2 of those games should be played with our second string, there should be no issues in terms of tiredness. The introduction to the season is over, the window is closed, players are here and settled and fit. Let’s start chaining together good results and set ourselves up for a better attempt at the top 4 than last season, where we started slowly.
