Chelsea written off once again – will miss out on the top four this season.

After defeat to Manchester United last Sunday, Chelsea has once again become the focus of negativity this week with many people stating that we will miss out on the top four. 

It’s taken me this long to write my blog this week because I was fuming after our shocking second half performance against United. I have expressed my anger in my match report and that’s all I am going to say about that for the time being so if you missed it, check it out here.

So to the negativity this week and as you can imagine it’s not been good at all. Antonio Conte’s future is once again up in the air (apparently), there are rumours of discontent within the squad with the likes of Willian, Thibaut Courtois and Alvaro Morata all looking to leave this summer and the pundits having their say on our top-four hopes this season with Manchester City coming up this weekend (more on that later).

We have not helped ourselves at all this season in a number of games where we seem to take our foot off the pedal having played so well in one half and have either lost games because of it, or we simply have not taken advantage of just how in control we are to make it count on the score-sheet. Another reason would be the fact that we simply have not been good enough with Manchester City at home this season being the perfect example.

We keep saying it and tweeting it on social media before, during and after games, Chelsea players just need to turn up in games and to not switch off. That has been our downfall and that’s the most disappointing thing for me anyway.

According to Thierry Henry, someone I do respect as a pundit I have to say, speaking after our defeat to United, was asked of his opinion of who he believes will miss out on the top four this season. He named Arsenal as one of the teams that will miss out but also believes that Chelsea’s poor form of late could hurt them, he said:

“Chelsea right now, they’ve obviously played Manchester United away, they are playing Man City away so they are having some difficult games at the minute. You would like to think they might go on a run after that. It’s going to be a fight. 

Four weeks ago I said Chelsea would be challenging for second! Now look at where they are right now! They are in trouble after losing back-to-back games recently, especially at home against Bournemouth. 

It looks like it’s going to be a battle between Tottenham and Chelsea and the way the two teams are playing right now you will back Tottenham.’ – Source: Metro.

The thing is, you cannot argue with him at the moment because we are struggling to find a level of consistency recently. However, there is light at the end of the tunnel after Manchester City away on Sunday as u/Narrator23 posted over on Reddit this past week as below:

Forget the fact as expected, Arsenal were beaten again by Manchester City last night, Chelsea’s remaining games look good and as far as a top four finish goes, we have it within our own hands. We face top four rivals Tottenham AND Liverpool at home and we can win both of those games whilst picking up three points in all the other games (which you have to say are winnable on paper – if we turn up!) then that’s 27 points on the board which should be enough compared to the games the likes of Liverpool, Man United and Tottenham have remaining.

As we have seen this season, it’s one thing to talk about being the better side on paper or to discuss the fact that we have players who can hurt anyone on their day. We MUST refocus our efforts on the run-in towards the end of the season and sort out the mess we find ourselves in.

If we can get anything this Sunday from Manchester City it would be an added, welcome bonus. Let’s hope we turn up on Sunday and from now until the end of the season. If we do, the top four is ours. God help us if we miss out!