We’ve reached the first international break of the season, a first moment to take stock and look back at the nascent season and what we’ve learned.
It’s always a bit of a jumble, and one should be reluctant to read to much into any of it. But as always, the chaos of a new season provides an excellent opportunity to test online betting. This is the time of the season where fans watching closely can be ahead of the curve, and the weight of data hasn’t yet accumulated enough to give the bookies and their algorightmns the edge.
If you’re a Chelsea fan and want to bet on Chelsea, you could go one of two ways. Either you see a team which is almost there, and is getting much worse results than it deserves. Or you see a team that is just as flawed as it was last year, a team only expected to do so much better because so much money has been spent on it, rather than because it’s actually going to be any good.
Maybe we’re optimists, but we’re sticking in the former camp for now. A couple of lucky breaks and we would have beaten Liverpool and West Ham. That would put us on 3 wins out of 4. The stats and the “underlying numbers” are there – we’re pushing high up and threatening the other team. We’re dominating possession and just lacking a little cutting edge. Perhaps two weeks
There’s also the host of injured players to return. By the time we play our next game, the defensive option of Benoit Badiashile will be restored. Reece James’ decisive threat down the right will have returned, and the trump card of this whole season – Christopher Nkunku – will be another fortnight closer to returning.
So if you’re going to bet on Chelsea to have a good season, now is the time to do it. If you have faith despite some pretty familiarly frustrating performances. International breaks often provide a turning point, and in a league that appears to be full of some pretty average teams this season, an injection of fresh blood and a little more time building chemistry on the training pitch could be just what Chelsea need to get things going.
We return to league action with games against Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Fulham and Burnley. If you’re confident we’re about to pull ourselves together, back us for the top four now, and hope you see our odds shrink as we rattle off four wins on the spin.
