Chelsea ready to turn the corner and race for Europe

Plenty of people like to bet on football, but very few actually make any money.

The bookies are just too smart, and too well informed. You’re certainly not going to beat them betting on things they know more about than you do. But if you’ve got a speciality – like say, Chelsea, you might just have a chance.

If you’ve been watching your team kick every ball in every game for year after year, you start to pick up on things that the bookies may have missed.

For example, this Chelsea team were rated as potentially competing for the title this season – those of us who were watching the squad being built and having seen performances last year would have had major doubts about backing that.

And now, perhaps we can make some money on the reverse? As the season has gone by, the bookies have gradually caught up on us being rubbish. Now they really give us long odds for finishing in the top 6, let alone the top 4.

So how can a Chelsea fan get the edge? Well perhaps you think this is the time to buy low on some Blues shares. If you think we’re about to click, that Mauricio Pochettino is going to get his message across, that Christopher Nkunku is going to return and blow the league open, that January reinforcements are finally going to bring us the goals and the defensive stability we need, this is your chance to flip the script and back us to shoot up the table.

The fixtures are finally easing off – in the league, next we’ve got Everton, then Sheffield United, then Wolves then Crystal Palace, then Luton.

In a normal season, we’d be expecting to win almost all of those. If we can win most of them, we can certainly gain major ground on our rivals. Tottenham look to be falling off the pace a little, Brighton are plunging down the table and it seems likely that Manchester United’s great results can’t keep up with their dodgy performances forever.

So call us hopeful, but we really think we can still do it. We’ve seen the flashes of talent, we believe Pochettino can inspire these players, we just need the points to prove it.

What has to happen is an improvement in our results, that’s without doubt. But the ingredients are all there. It’s no guarantee it will work out, but there has to be some hope – otherwise what’s the point?