Chelsea are about halfway through their season now, depending on how well they do in the cup competitions.
It’s been a strange one – they often are. The Blues were expected to make a slow start to the campaign, having come back so late from a summer full of Club World Cup action. But in fact, they made a decent start, and seemed to keep up some of the momentum from that tournament.
As time has gone by though, things have turned sour. An unbeaten run flipped instantly into a winless run. Cracks began to show behind the scenes, where Enzo Maresca started to flex his muscles, and ultimately forced his way out.
Now there’s a new man in place, and a great air of uncertainty around. The Blues are still in all four competitions, but does anyone back them to win any of them?
The EFL Cup would be the easiest, given they’re already in the semi finals. The league looks impossible, unless new manager Liam Rosenior is truly a miracle worked. It’s the same story in the Champions League – it’s hard enough for a truly great team to win that competition. Can a flawed and young Chelsea team with a manager who has no experience there really expect to win it? If you think they can, you’ll find amazing odds at betiton on that very subject.
But that just reveals how unfancied they are. It looks set to be another season of consolidation and steadying the ship. Getting into the Champions League again would be job done for Rosenior, and we really hope for his sake he does it.
But for the fans who have been told every year that a title charge is just around the corner, it will be another frustrating year of stagnancy. There’s even an argument that winning a cup wouldn’t cure that. You can get a good draw and a couple of lucky results and win a cup. The league is the real test of how good a team and a project is, and right now Chelsea are heading towards 10 years without having mounted a serious challenge.
Arsenal look set to run away with it, and Chelsea really are no closer to them than they were a year or two ago. Does anyone expect them to be up there in a year’s time? Perhaps only a real optimist, and you won’t find many of those around Stamford Bridge at the moment.
