Chelsea’s season defining 8 game December coming around quickly

Chelsea are flying high right now, fresh from beating Barcelona in the Champions League and then battling to a brave draw with ten men against Arsenal in the Premier League over the weekend.

Any early season uncertainty from a dodgy September is fading away. From back to front we’re looking better and better, and the team is really starting to gel and come together after another busy summer.

A look at the odds on Premier Bet Ethiopia show that we’re not only favoured more than we were at the start of the season, we’ve also overtaken both Liverpool and Manchester City with most bookies to go from fourth favourite to second favourite to win the league. Enzo Maresca has patiently denied that we’re good enough to win the title, but even his stance is starting to soften as the weight of evidence builds up.

The game against Arsenal on Sunday was the best proof yet. Despite going down to ten men in the first half, we went toe to toe with the best team in Europe right now and showed we were more than their equal. In fact, they were really unable to turn the screw in the second half despite their numerical advantage. It was a balanced game, not a siege of Robert Sanchez’s goal.

That’s not just a good point to earn, it’s also a sure sign that the mentality and belief of this group is improving. A year ago, we’re pretty sure they would have just folded. Now they dug deep and found a way to get a result. No wonder the bookies are starting to believe we can actually do it – or at least run Arsenal close.

Things are going in our favour – injured players like Cole Palmer and Benoit Badiashile are back, with the likes of Dario Essugo not far behind. We’re not 100% fit, but we’re close enough that we’ve got depth to get through an incredibly hectic run of games.

This week we have Leeds in midweek and Bournemouth at the weekend. Nothing should be taken for granted, but if we play to our best against two teams who play pretty open football, we should be too good for them.

Next week has a very different – but equally fascinating – set of challenges. Atalanta is a crucial game in the Champions League to try to cement our place in the top 8, knowing that we conclude the league phase with a tricky trip to Napoli. After heading to Bergamo in midweek, we return to the UK to face David Moyes tough Everton team, who will likely sit deep at Stamford Bridge and force us to try and break them down.

After that we have a midweek trip to Cardiff in the EFL Cup quarter finals which should be winnable, but that’s followed at the weekend by an early kick off at St James’ Park. That’s pretty much kryptonite and we can easily see that disrupting a winning run. However Eddie Howe’s side aren’t in the best form, and if we can break our run of bad form in the North East it will be a huge coup and possibly announce us as genuinely in the title race.

Things don’t get much easier at the end of the month, with Aston Villa coming to town on the 27th followed by our return game against Bournemouth. But at least that’s two home games to end a busy December.

That is a season defining 8 game December. By the time we face Manchester City on the 4th of January, we will have a much better idea of what our realistic possibilities are this season.