Chelsea at Stamford Bridge this season were unstoppable heading into this weekend’s match with Sunderland. The Blues had a 6-0 record and 28-0 goal differential going into the Sunday fixture. With a comfortable first place ranking in the Premier League table, Carlo Ancelotti’s club was expected to improve to a 5 point advantage over the rest of the pack at home.
But a very strange thing happened this weekend. Chelsea lost and proved that they are in fact human.
The team that has played video game football at home this season, but looked out of form in a 3-0 shock defeat to Sunderland. Nedum Onuoha, Asamoah Gyan and Danny Welbeck all scored for the underdogs and Chelsea could only manage 3 shots on target for the 90 minute match. I guess you can chalk this one up to the law of averages because Chelsea have been incredible at home this season and recently dominant over Sunderland with a 7 goal performance last season at home.
The loss will make things interesting for the first place club, Arsenal currently sit two points behind the Blues in second place coming off of a successful 2-1 match against Everton earlier today. The Gunners will be tested in the upcoming weeks with two challenging matches of Tottenham at home and Aston Villa on the road, but Chelsea’s poor form at home opens back up the conversation of a challenging team this season for the title. Manchester United is always open to the debate of a Premiership title especially considering a string of fortune matches coming up in the next month with Arsenal in mid-December being their only match against a team competing for the top four followed up by another tough match against the defending champs.
Chelsea’s upcoming fixture offers two winnable matches against Birmingham and Newcastle, but the club will have a tough schedule this December with several challenging matches including: Everton, Tottenham, Manchester United and Arsenal. That’s bad news for Chelsea. Good news for the rest of the league.
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