The Premier League is 38 games for every club, including Chelsea. Shocking I know. It is as fair as it can possibly be. At least, until you really start thinking about it.
Yes, everyone plays the same teams, but the when and how matters. Some parts of the season are more constrained than others. Teams would much rather play someone off several losses to top clubs than several wins to lower clubs. The variabilities matter.
In a twisted way, Chelsea got a really good start to the season. It’s not easy, but that might be ideal for the Blues’ pursuits.
Crystal Palace is first up which is the no big deal home opener. Then the fun begins. Arsenal away and Liverpool away before the first break. Aston Villa at the Bridge, Spurs away, Manchester City at home, and Southampton at home before the second break. Fast forward to the winter which will see African players away at the Africa Cup of Nations. Chelsea will likely be without Edouard Mendy and Hakim Ziyech for Liverpool, Manchester City, Spurs, and likely Brighton as well as a few cup games sprinkled in should a player go all the way to the finals. Plus, Club World Cup goes in there somewhere which will shift fixtures around in December.
It’s a bear of a start and a bear of a midsection, but that’s perfect in its own way. Chelsea are European Champions. They aren’t supposed to fear any team. Furthermore, Thomas Tuchel did his best work against the big sides. There were very few scalps he failed to claim against teams on Chelsea’s footing.
But perhaps the best part of all is the variability mentioned earlier. The start of the season is the most spaced out with plenty of rest between games. That means time to train and plan too. Tuchel will love to get several big matches out of the way with maximum rest, training, and planning time between games.
Something else to consider is all the tournaments this summer digging into rest and preseason. The teams that will be less hurt by that are the teams Chelsea will face later in the campaign. Fellow top six rivals will be equally as drained which will save the Blues from any potential disadvantages against fresh sides.
Another important variable is momentum. Should Chelsea get off to a good start with these fixtures, it will set the Blues up on an extremely stable platform for the rest of the season. The eventual Premier League title winner is almost always a team that starts strong rather than one that catches up. Chelsea could well pull ahead before they even begin their Champions League defense.
Winter will be tricky and that is a concern given the dips in recent seasons, but a strong platform going into it could be the buffer that gets Chelsea over the line at the end of the season. Being successful in the Premier League is not just about the best results against the other 19 teams. It’s about navigating the particular runs of the season better than others. After all, a run of Brentford, City, and Watford would look far different than a run of Liverpool, Norwich, and Leicester regardless of the fact you’ll play them all eventually.
This can be a great start to the season for Chelsea. In a twisted way, this rough start is exactly what the Blues may need to return to the top of the English game after conquering Europe.