A blog of two halves

Nobody's laughing now

When Blues fans looked at the fixture list earlier in the season and saw that Chelsea’s last league matches were against Watford and Leicester, they laughed.

3 May 2019
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Chelsea coach, Mauizio Sarri. PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES

When Blues fans looked at the fixture list earlier in the season and saw that Chelsea’s last league matches were against Watford and Leicester, they laughed. Two easy games to allow the team to comfortably finish on a high!

Well nobody’s laughing now. After grinding out an insipid draw at Old Trafford, Chelsea face Watford at the Bridge, hard on the heels of another midweek European clash, knowing that the Hornets are on a roll.

The only hope is that Watford may be distracted by their rare participation in an FA Cup final in two weeks’ time.

And then it’s a tricky last-day away journey to Leicester, another team playing well above expectations under Brendan Rodgers, a man who – from his days as youth coach at Stamford Bridge – probably knows as much about Chelsea as Morrie Sarri.

The Blues would dearly love to guarantee Champions League football next season, but to do that they’ll have to win one (and possibly both) of their remaining league matches.

If they are overtaken by United or Arsenal, it will be hard to stomach.

Losing Tony Rudiger to injury against Man U means there’s a smaller pool of top-class defenders to draw on as we enter the last lap, but Sarri can still go out on a high (assuming his services are dispensed with) if he achieves that elusive top-four finish.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

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Tim Harrison

Tim is our Chelsea FC blogger.

Tim has been writing Chelsea match reports since the late 1980s for newspapers and, more recently, websites.

When he first reported on the Blues, the press box was a metal cage suspended over the lip of the old west stand - and you reached it via a precarious walkway over the heads of the fans.

But he has been a Chelsea fan since his father took an excited seven-year-old to watch Chelsea v Manchester United in the mid 1960s... and covered his ears every time the chanting got too ripe.

In July 2005 he wrote The Rough Guide to Chelsea, published by Penguin, which sold 15,000 copies.

His favourite player of all time is Charlie Cooke, the mazy winger who lit up Chelsea's left wing in the 60s and 70s.

When he isn't watching the Blues, Tim acts, paints, writes and researches local history.

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