For the best part of six months, Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea reign swept through a giddy honeymoon, extending beyond the stage of a debut season at which some of his predecessors had already begun sweating on divorce.
No one expected it to last forever, least of all the man himself, but nor can he have forecast that its end would be quite so abrupt. A 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace confirmed that Chelsea are now well and truly in a rut, winless in four and having taken just two points from meetings with Everton, Fulham, Ipswich and now Oliver Glasner’s much-improved Eagles over the festive run.
