Trying to make sense of how ‘the race for the top four’ is panning in the final straight for the four teams involved takes some doing, but as he writes in this week’s column, Pat Nevin has noticed it might not be that much different from usual…
I’ll admit it, I am confused. All normal common sense has gone out the window in this last part of the season. Someone asked me the other day to explain what was going on in the race for the third and fourth spot in the Premier league and who I think will secure those places in the end. I reckon it would be easier to explain the current Brexit debate in the UK and then guess what the outcome is going to be in six months’ time.
Okay, so maybe just a little bit of an exaggeration there but really what on earth is happening? The only result I had a fair level of confidence in over at the weekend was that we would get a draw against Manchester United. Was this negativity on my part or a belief that both teams are so evenly matched they could not be separated? No it wasn’t, I just thought that after Arsenal’s latest capitulation, this time at Leicester, and Spurs imploding against West Ham, what is the result that would give us absolutely no clarity on the situation? The answer was the draw and as such, that is exactly what we were going to get. I was even bold enough to say it before the game on BBC radio.
As the Blues fans streamed out of Old Trafford however, there was a slow realisation that there is actually one thing to hold on to that looked pretty unlikely just a few weeks ago. With only two games to go in the Premier League season our Champions League future is entirely in our own hands. Two wins and it is definitely mission accomplished, even if United and Arsenal win their last two games 25-0!
Had you given me and many other Chelsea fans this scenario at the beginning of a season that was clearly going to be transitional and difficult, I think the majority of us would have taken it. Not that these are easy games, with Leicester in particular having a fair-to-middling run of form at the moment. Their form isn’t actually better than fair, their home loss to Newcastle proving that point, but in simple terms having to beat Watford and Leicester to get Champions League football, I’ll have some of that.
The United game itself at the weekend had a whole bunch of stories waiting to happen, former Chelsea man Romelu Lukaku seemed the likely player to break Chelsea hearts but of course that would have been far too obvious. Instead it had to be the much-loved Juan Mata, our former two-time Player of the Year and far less regular scorer who went on to break the deadlock.
