Chelsea fans starting to fear the worst after midweek results dump Blues out of top 5 | OneFootball

Wednesday night was not kind to Chelsea in terms of Premier League results.

While the Blues have to wait until Thursday night to get their post international break, season ending run started, every other team in the Premier League played last night or tonight.

Manchester City and Newcastle both won, dropping us to 6th place, out of the Champions League places. Aston Villa won too, putting them just a point behind us.

We’ve already covered in detail how tricky our fixtures are to close out the season, and we’ve still got to play a buoyant Newcastle in a game which could prove crucial to deciding who sneaks into the top 5. We play them in the penultimate game of the season sandwiched between matches against Liverpool and Man U.

Our healthy lead built up in the first part of the season has dissolved to nothing, and there can be no mistakes now.

With this top 5 race and the Club World Cup to follow, fans will actually be treated to a really exciting and competitive end to the season, with tons to play for. That’s a huge relief after the last few years, where things have tended to peter out pretty early.

It’s all pretty exciting – if you can handle the tension, that is.

Maresca backs Champions League progress to help grow his squad

Enzo Maresca speaks in his press conference. (Photo by Chris Lee / Chelsea FC)

Manager Enzo Maresca is under no illusions about how important the games to come are:

“It’s an important part [of developing these young players] and the reason why is because also they can, you know, if you are able to finish top four, top five, first of all it’s fantastic for the fans, for the club because we bring this club where this club has been always there,” the manager explained.

“But for the players it’s also important because they can realise the work that they have done and they can build from them something for the future.”