Chelsea's Christmas run could reveal them as frauds – or as title contenders
Today at 07:06 AM
At the start of this season, we looked at Chelsea's fixtures up until Christmas (the traditional halfway point of the campaign) and broke them down into 3 sections.
Man City on the opening day was a weird one, and expectations weren't high. But after that we had perhaps the easiest run of the season: Wolves, Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, West Ham, Brighton, Nottingham Forest.
We were by no means perfect in that run, but only dropped points against Palace and Forest, and looked like we had immediately found our feet under Enzo Maresca. It built some confidence which we were able to take into the harder run which followed.
Liverpool, Newcastle, Man U and then Arsenal last weekend provided another level of challenge for this young team. And the tough run isn't over yet – after a soft return from the international break against Leicester, we've got tough looking games against Aston Villa, Tottenham, Brentford and Everton on the horizon.
So if you want to take advantage of bonus offers from bookmakers, where should you be backing the Blues to finish this season? Will we start to translate our form from the games against weaker teams and start getting results against top sides? Or will the teams lower down the table start to figure out how better to dig in and stop us scoring freely against them on the counter?
It's a fascinating question which we can't wait to have answered as the campaign progresses. Chelsea fans – and a lot of pundits, still aren't quite sure what to make of this team, despite the fact we have just one league game left before we're already in December.
On the one hand we're sitting third and have shown some really fearsome attacking play.
On the other, we've not beaten a top team yet, and still look defensively suspect. When Cole Palmer doesn't do something magical, we don't tend to win. There are issues with breaking down low blocks, and issues putting up a successful low block ourselves when we're leading in a game. The big picture is bright, but it's perfectly reasonable to have question marks about some of the details. As has been pointed out, our trajectory has us on course for 63 points, almost exactly the same as last season. So even looking at the table right now is a little deceptive.
Another fortnight on the training pitch should help, even with so many players away. And Enzo Maresca's insistence that we're still not playing "his football" hopefully hints at a continued progression in terms of the in possession play we see.
If we can keep up our great luck in terms of injuries, and if we start to see a more coherent defence come together with more games and more minutes together, there's no reason we can't be well established in the top 4 by the time we face Fulham on Boxing Day.
One way or the other, it feels like pundits and Chelsea fans are going to have a much better idea of what this team is actually capable of this season by then.
