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Chelsea started the season brilliantly, as from the European Champions. They were topping the league for quite a long time.
They started a dream run winning 10 out of 14 games and losing only once. They were at the top of the table from game-week 7 to game-week 14.
Looking at them currently, nobody would believe those said above. The team now find themselves in a messy situation, to the extent from where they might feel that they cannot do better anymore.
They started the new year being in second position. Their fixture for January was quite demanding for any team.
They had to play 7 matches this month - 3 of them were against Tottenham, two of which were in the Carabao cup semi-final.
Among the other 4, one was in the FA cup, one was against Brighton. The other two were against the other table-toppers City and Liverpool.
Still, you would expect to have a positive outcome of this from a champion team. This is where Chelsea lacked the most.
They couldn’t win against Liverpool at home, couldn’t win against Brighton. They couldn’t gather anything against City.
They won the FA cup game against Chesterfield and all the 3 games against Tottenham. So, 4 wins, 3 draws and only 1 defeat, that also against the table-toppers; doesn’t look really bad, does it?
Adding to that, they are currently 3rd in the table also might convince people to think that they are off quite well.
But there are some catches. Due to match postponement for Covid-19, the match played by every team is not the same. And Chelsea played the most in the division with 24 games. They have managed 47 points from them.
Now let’s look at their competitions. Manchester City is 10 points ahead of them with 1 game in hand. Liverpool is 1 point ahead of them with 2 games in hand.
United, sitting at no. 4, is 9 points behind them but they have 2 games in hand. Arsenal at no. 6 is 11 points behind them keeping 3 games in hand. Tottenham at no. 7 is also 11 points behind them but they have 4 games in hand.
So, it may look good now. But on paper, they are in a position from which they can almost say ‘goodbye’ to the premier league and in a very threatening UCL spot position.
The main harm this January month caused to them was that they lost points against their direct rivals. Points that could have helped them to reduce the deficit at the top, not to mention, increase the gap from teams below them.
As a result, it seems like the season for Chelsea, even though there are 14 games left and anything can happen, is quite near to over. They might have seen the best version of themselves in the table.