Chelsea shouldn’t find comfort in pre-season predictions now that they’re at a low

The Athletic’s Simon Johnson wrote an article on the 7th of December entitled “Chelsea losing top spot? The only surprise is that people are so surprised.” In said piece, Johnson was at pains to emphasize that Chelsea were never title contenders in the first place and people shouldn’t be aghast at the club losing top spot in the league. In reality, it was a real comfort food piece, indeed, it was similar to choosing to eat a bowl of creamy bacon carbonara instead of braving the weather conditions of Storm Barra by going to work. 

Perhaps that is a bit harsh on the Chelsea correspondent given that after all, Johnson is, of course, a very accomplished writer, but his article was designed to make a fanbase feel better rather than issuing a rallying cry to dust themselves down again and fight for the title. After all, the latest betting on football odds still price Chelsea as having a chance at 5/1 to win the Premier League. 

That isn’t to say that the latest Premier League football predictions make Chelsea the outright favourites to win their first league title since 2017, but they haven’t surrendered the Blues’ chances as quickly as Johnson has. 

It should be said that it is perfectly natural to want to find solace after a stinging defeat and the loss at the London Stadium against West Ham was particularly tough to take. It was a further kick in the teeth when you consider the mistake by Edouard Mendy and then the freak winner scored by Arthur Masuaku in the 87th minute.

Indeed, the sense of despair was real, especially as Man City and Liverpool went above Chelsea in the league table. 

But up until this stage, Thomas Tuchel’s men have looked like worthy title contenders which is why now isn’t the time to begin drawing a line under the season and any hope of winning the league. If we go back to Johnson’s piece for The Athletic, he uses the example of how far Chelsea finished behind the league leaders during the last few seasons in a bid to emphasize that they were never going to win the league come the spring.

It may be best to quote the Chelsea scribe here to get a better sense of the point he was trying to make: “Just look at the points margin Chelsea have finished behind the champions in the last four years: 19, 33, 26 and 30. That is a huge gulf in quality and consistency to make up.”

What Johnson doesn’t allude to here is the fact that Chelsea were under a transfer embargo for some of that time and also had Frank Lampard in charge which, we can safely now say, was holding the Blues back. Indeed, just months after Tuchel took over he made Chelsea champions of Europe with the players that Lampard had bought.

This brings us onto the most crucial point, Chelsea have spent an absolute fortune to bridge the gap between Liverpool, Man City, and themselves, and are far from the same team that finished light-years behind the eventual champions over the last four years.  Alas, Simon Johnson, I’m afraid to say that you don’t get more qualified title credentials than this current Chelsea side has.

In other words, Chelsea were always going to be title contenders this season and are right in the heat of battle to accomplish that goal. It is nothing short of criminal to reflect on the unambitious and largely inaccurate predictions before the season started in order to stomach recent setbacks. Indeed, there’s no time to begin a post-mortem on the season when there is everything to play for.