Chelsea are flying at the moment, surging up the table in the Premier League and Champions League and looking increasingly like a real contender in both competitions.
Things have really turned around since late September. Even if you had free spins no deposit in a top casino you’d struggle to make more money than you would have done backing the Blues a couple of months ago, when things didn’t look so rosy.
The three international breaks since the start of the season have really broken up the narrative, making it harder to hold the whole story in one piece in your head, but if you glance at the season’s results so far you start to get a sense of how things have gone.
The early phase saw the Blues dropping lots of points in easy games, and one could feel the tension rising. A draw with Crystal Palace, a victory over a rotten West Ham, a lucky win over Fulham that could have gone the other way. Nobody was convinced by that, and they were soon proven right by the next run – a draw with Brentford, defeat to Bayern and Man U, a very shaky cup win over Lincoln, then a defeat against Brighton in the league.
Things were at their bleakest then, and that was your moment to back the Blues for success. Bit by bit, it’s been a steady recovery since. The gritty win over Benfica and Estevao’s miracle winner against Liverpool ended that run, and since then it’s only the loss to Sunderland and the draw with Qarabag which have blotted an otherwise perfect record.
That’s all culminated in a thrashing of Barcelona last night. But there is an even bigger test on the horizon – a home game against Arsenal on Sunday.
Nobody is really expecting us to win that, and even losing it won’t set us back too much. There is now real belief in this team, and losing to the best team in Europe right now won’t change anyone’s mind.
But if we win it, minds will very much be changed in a positive way. We need to prove we can compete with the top teams, and a double win over Barcelona and Arsenal in the space of a few days would be the perfect way to do that.
The doubts of September are long gone – but beating Mikel Arteta’s team will put us in a whole new conversation.
of course, beating Arsenal, or at worst avoiding defeat, would be a huge statement; Chelsea, go, go, keep going…..