When push comes to shove, can we rely on Arsenal? That's the question that all of us in these parts are asking ourselves this week. And a fair survey of the history of the last decade or so – one which weighed up all the statistical evidence and brought everything that we know into account - would seem to suggest fairly strongly that, no, we can't.
Yet I guess we'll just have to ride along with that, ignore history in as much as it's possible to do so, and be as hopeful as we possibly can in the circumstances.
Because this is a weekend when Arsenal could really break the habit of a lifetime by turning on a performance against a top-ranking club, and thereby helping us out. A win for them on Sunday at Manchester City (a ground from which, let's not forget, even Burnley recently managed to emerge with a point, days before Sunderland had come within minutes of doing the same), in tandem with a victory for us the previous day at Swansea (no foregone conclusion, even in the absence of Wilfried Bony, though that detail can't hurt), would provide the perfect set-up for the following weekend's top-of-the-table number.
It would mean that when we went into that game at home to Manchester City, we would have the comfy cushion of a five-point gap between the pair of us, plumped-up from the current two points. Which, in turn, would mean that every ounce of the occasion's potentially awe-inspiring weight would be removed from us and lumped right on top of our visitors, where it would be most likely to produce maximum discomfort.
City would then come into that match knowing they would effectively need to win just to stay in touch at the top of the table. A draw for them would be roughly tantamount to a defeat. It would be all or nothing time. Or thereabouts.
We, on the other hand, could relax in the knowledge that, even allowing for the worst of all possible outcomes, our position at the top of the table was secure, while understanding that maintaining our 100 percent home league record would elevate us to an eight-point lead over City at the top of the table. And do we look like the kind of team to let an eight-point lead slip?
Oh…
Well, in that case, do we look like the kind of team to let an eight-point lead slip twice? Surely not...
Anyway, we're all Gooners this weekend.
PA-21911018_loic remy
Of course, the reason we've had a bit of free time on our hands these past few days to think through these possible future developments and spend a little while working on the hypothetical maths, is because this has been one of those vanishingly rare things in the life of a Chelsea supporter – a week without a game in the middle of it.
In fact, even more unusually, it's been the second such week in succession, six whole days having separated our FA Cup tie against Watford from our Premier League game against Newcastle [pictured above] last Saturday. (The sequence breaks on Tuesday, when we go to Premier League under-achievers Liverpool for the first leg of the Capital One Cup semi-final.)
And I don't know about you, but I've found it interesting, to a certain extent, to have these yawningly vacant patches in which to reflect a bit and maybe slightly recuperate. This, one realises, must be what it feels like to be a Manchester United fan – nothing much going on, lots of time off.
On the other hand, although not being able to kick back for a spell has its pleasures, you'd always prefer to have some football to think about, wouldn't you? You'd prefer to be involved.
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I'm slightly curious about why some people insist on referring to our surprising and entirely odds-upsetting defeat at Tottenham on New Year's Day as a ‘thrashing'. There was widespread use of that particular word in the papers in the immediate aftermath of the match – and admittedly a large portion of it at that stage had to do with an irresistible pun involving Harry Kane (Kane, thrashing – geddit?), which was just about forgiveable, especially factoring in the enormous pressures of time under which newspapers work.
Yet there it was again above an article this week in which Cesc Fabregas spoke about our team's important and thus far 100 percent successful attempt to get back in the groove again. The piece was headlined: ‘Fabregas: Chelsea's title charge back on track after thrashing at Tottenham.'
Everything about that headline made complete sense to me, apart from the use of the term ‘thrashing'. 5-0 is a thrashing. 5-1, too. And 5-2 is a fair old beating. But 5-3… well, I don't mean to be obvious, but that's basically 2-0, if you do the maths. And 5-3 when the team on the wrong end of the result could, and probably should, have had seven goals rather than three – that's different again.
So there are all sorts of words that could be used to describe what happened at White Hart Lane on that still fundamentally mysterious day over the holiday period. Clearly we can refer to it as ‘a defeat'. Clearly we can also refer to it as ‘a setback', which has had to be corrected in the meantime. And we can have no hesitation in referring to it as ‘a miserable afternoon of high-grade slapstick for all concerned.'
What it wasn't, though, under any circumstances, was a ‘thrashing'. So perhaps the word can be stood down now, opportunities for puns notwithstanding.