Things have opened up gloriously for Chelsea in a weekend of unexpected upsets.
In the early kick off, Arsenal went to St James’ Park and lost to Newcastle. Not only were Mikel Arteta’s team beaten they continued to look really lacking in attack. Their little wobble is looking a lot more serious, and they’re losing touch with the teams at the top.
That was made even more interesting by the shock results at the Vitality Stadium later this afternoon. Bournemouth beat Man City 2-1 in a thriller which sees Pep Guardiola’s team drop yet more points.
Sadly Liverpool were able to get the job done at Anfield against Brighton – although they did go behind in the game.
None of those teams – the predicted preseason top 3 – look to be at their best right now. That means a huge opportunity for Chelsea to make further progress up the table. A win tomorrow over Manchester United would put us third, just 3 points behind City and 5 behind Liverpool at the top of the table. We would then have the opportunity to really upset the apple cart by beating Arsenal at home next weekend.
Chelsea have the chance to break their bad winter habits
As staging points in a season go, the November international break is a big one. After that, there are no breaks until much later in the Spring, and you really get stuck into the intensive Christmas period. This is where Chelsea teams have tended to struggle over the years, but this time it should be different.
The squad are fully fit, as opposed to starting to fall apart as we’ve seen all too many times in recent seasons. On top of that, the team should be getting more and more used to Enzo Maresca’s systems, and the newer signings have had more and more time to settle in.
That might just be enough for us to break our bad winter habit, and set ourselves up in a really strong position to make the top 4.