If you’re looking to pick up some Chelsea tickets this season, you’re running out of chances.
There are just 2 games left for the Blues – one against Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, and then the Europa Conference League final against Real Betis.
The good news is that, while there are only two games left, they really couldn’t be any bigger. One is literally a final, a chance to win a trophy the club has never won before, and become the first team to complete the full set of European cups.
The other is a league, game, but given how the table has arranged itself, is one that is essentially a final. Win and we’re in the Champions League, draw and we’re in the Europa League, lose and we’re dropped back into the Conference League.
So really the games couldn’t have much more riding on them – that’s not bad for late May, given we’ve not had a huge amount to play for beyond February in the last couple of years.
The opposition is not the sort of top tier teams we would be truly afraid of, but underestimating either of them would be a huge mistake, especially in the context of these games.
Betis are a giant, historic team, surely one of the biggest to have never made a European final. They will be absolutely desperate to win this, and their fans and players will be far more motivated than ours. Yes we have the wage bill and the depth to see them off pretty easily if we get everything right, but this is going to be a huge step up from the games we’ve faced in the Conference League so far. The biggest mistake we could make is underestimating a team with more than enough top players to beat us.
It’s a similar story with Forest – on paper we should be heavy favourites, but in a one off game at their stadium, with the the home crowd going crazy and a colossal prize on the line, that sort of things counts for far less.
Their form has fallen off, but they showed us plenty of times earlier in the season that they are good enough to beat anyone on their day.
Our players won’t need much motivation knowing they must earn 3 points to make it into the Champions League, but if they shrink like they did against Newcastle in similar circumstances a fortnight ago, they could be in trouble.
Whatever happens, this season is guaranteed to finish with 180+ minutes of pure drama, and we can’t wait.
