Since losing to Manchester City on the opening day of the season, Chelsea have been beaten only once in 17 home games in all competitions and in a dismal run of form more broadly (nine points from 10 league games since mid-December), it has perhaps been lost that their recent home record has remained strong.
On Friday last week, Enzo Maresca suggested that seven wins from Chelsea’s seven remaining home matches could be enough to deliver Champions League football.
“If you remember; the first four or five away games at the start of the season, we won all of them and our best moments were away,” Maresca said following Saturday night’s 2-1 loss at Aston Villa.
Yet if Maresca is right, and Chelsea’s home form is to be the defining factor in the final third of their campaign, then it cannot be ideal that they begin that run on Tuesday evening with a protest against the club ownership planned outside Stamford Bridge.
Aston Villa finished fourth last season on 68 and such is the congested nature of the table that even fewer may be enough this season, particularly with English clubs well on track to claim a fifth Champions League spot.
