The first chunk of the season, leading up to the November international break, saw Chelsea pick up a lot of points, and play better than most people expected, given the chaos of the last couple of years and another summer of upheaval.
At that point we had already made it to the top 4, but most pundits were keeping their powder pretty dry – despite some great results against the lesser teams, Chelsea had yet to beat one of the big boys, and there were lingering doubts because of the strength of schedule we had faced. Draws against Arsenal and Manchester United didn’t really give much evidence either way.
If you had backed Chelsea to win the league back then you’d have got amazing odds, whether you’d used a high street bookies or a new sports betting sites. People just weren’t ready to buy in yet.
There was a suspicion we going to be found out as frauds, once winter set in and tougher games came along. But instead, so far the run of 3 games since we returned from the November break has done the opposite. After convincing wins against Leicester, Aston Villa and Southampton, Enzo Maresca has spent most of the last few press conferences denying his team are in a title race. Those juicy odds are coming in fast.
Of course, it hasn’t answered many questions about our record against top teams – Villa were awful when we played them, and can’t be considered the scalp they would have been when looking at the fixtures back in the summer.
Next up is Tottenham. They’re also in a tricky patch at the moment, winning big games and losing easy ones without much warning. But despite some recent chaos, the nature of our rivalry with them should mean that tomorrow’s game means a lot. Win it and people will take us a whole lot more seriously, disregarding their recent form.
Liverpool dropping points against Newcastle in midweek and then having today’s game postponed only helps. We can climb to within 4 points of them with a win against Spurs. We understand why Maresca keeps insisting we’re not really contenders – but if we make it to January 1st and are still within two wins of the league leaders, even he is going to have to start admitting we’re at least in the race.
Even if things slow down though, we’re miles ahead of where we were expected to be, and this first half of the season was a triumph.
