Chelsea’s Champions League campaign started slowly, with a defeat to Bayern Munich, but it’s picked up momentum ever since.
The new format of Europe’s top club trophy is still only in its second year, but we’re starting to get the hang of it. In the old setup, a high seed like Chelsea just needed to get the job done in the double header against the 4th seed to set themselves up nicely to qualify second. Things are far less simple now, with each opposition faced just once and no free points on offer.
Now, Chelsea are 14/1 in Betway’s Champions League betting markets to win the whole thing. That’s still long odds, but they’re coming in week by week, and if we can skip the playoff round in November they will improve significantly.
The Blues weren’t that bad in the game against Bayern, but by the end of the game the difference in level was clear. Small things made big differences, and despite some good chances for Enzo Maresca’s team by the end they were being toyed with by the Bavarians.
Against Benfica in the next game it was pretty much the opposite – the Blues were really poor despite very mediocre opposition, but they were professional and got the job done to pick up 3 points.
The heavy win against Ajax that followed saw them finally rack up the goals – against a team who now sit dead bottom of the whole table. There was the perfect chance to follow up with an away win against Qarabag in Azerbaijan – but a frustrating 2-2 defeat was a huge blow to our chances of making the top 8.
The good news is that it’s been followed up by a big win over Barcelona this week. That makes up for two points dropped and now has us sitting in 7th with 3 games to play.
If we play like we did on Tuesday, none of those games should give us too much of a problem. Atlanta are a decent side but not having the best season. Pafos shouldn’t be underestimated but have one of the smallest wage bills in the competition. Then Napoli away on the final match week is a real challenge.
We should be good enough to beat them, but you really don’t want to be going to the Estadio Diego Maradona needing a result. Win our next two and we should put ourselves in a strong position for that final match, perhaps just needing a draw to make sure we are in those precious top 8 places and avoiding the painful extra playoff games in the spring.
Still, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s focus on Atalanta and 3 points there before we start looking too far ahead. If we slip up there, we’re dropped right back into the mix, and the great win over Barcelona doesn’t look nearly as good. The new format has made a race for qualification that’s exciting right up to the final day, and while we’d love to be top of the table right now, the tension of needing results in all 8 games is undeniably entertaining, as is the thrill of watching other teams’ results on the hectic final day.
By the time we reach the spring, this Chelsea team will hopefully have continued to develop and will be ready to take on the likes of Bayern with a better result this time.
