It’s hard to know what felt longer: Sunday’s 0-0 draw at Brentford, or the time since Chelsea looked like title challengers. Their season is far from over, and could yet end with success, but there’s a slight sense of drift right now. That is only in-keeping with the wider Premier League season, to be fair, which should prompt a wider discussion. Enzo Maresca’s side really shouldn’t have had a match within 72 hours of their last, which he felt was “unfair”.
Even within that, there is still a pertinent debate to be had about what Chelsea are, and could be. Many within the Premier League would say that should be a club facing up to significant punishment, given the investigation into irregular payments from Roman Abramovich’s time and the current talks with Uefa over potential financial rule breaches from the sale of the women’s team to a sister company.
