Chelsea have the Premier League's toughest run-in – but could it suit them?

By the time the final whistle blew on Burnley’s 2-2 comeback at Stamford Bridge, the mood inside the ground felt less like a setback than a tipping point. Liam Rosenior’s description of his players having “set fire” to another lead was still echoing through the mixed zone 48 hours later, while Liverpool’s 97th-minute winner at Nottingham Forest and Benjamin Sesko’s late strike for Manchester United against Everton had shuffled the Champions League pack again. Chelsea, Liverpool and United are now separated by three points, with one of them condemned to sixth place and Europa-League-only football next season.

Opta’s projection model makes grim reading for the blue half of west London: a 32 % probability of finishing sixth, 24 % for fifth and only 15 % for the top-four berth that would guarantee Champions League football. The algorithm is reacting to one inescapable fact: no club faces a more forbidding closing sequence than Chelsea, whose remaining 11 league opponents carry an average current position of 8.6. Fixtures against the other five members of the top six are still to come, including head-to-head meetings with United and Liverpool that could amount to a £50 million shoot-out for Europe’s primary competition.

Yet the data also hints at an alternative narrative. Since Rosenior took charge, Chelsea have collected 14 points from six matches — second only to United’s 16 — and have done so while flashing the same Jekyll-and-Hyde pattern that has defined their season: dominant possession, slick passing triangles, then sudden anxiety when confronted by a compressed defensive block. Seventeen of the 19 points they have dropped from winning positions have come at Stamford Bridge, a statistic Burnley manager Scott Parker exploited by crowding the midfield and forcing Chelsea into the sort of “safe” passes Rosenior later lamented.

Paradoxically, the run-in may spare them that particular torment. Eight of their final 11 opponents feature inside the Premier League’s top 10 for average starting distance from goal of attacking sequences, a proxy for high defensive lines and willingness to engage higher up the pitch. Chelsea’s metrics this season improve sharply when they are not monopolising the ball: more goals scored, fewer conceded and more points per game when possession drops below 60 %. Last season’s split — 1.4 points per game against top-half sides, 2.0 against the bottom half — has tightened to 1.4 and 1.9 respectively, underscoring a side more comfortable trading punches than shadow-boxing.

The evidence is not merely academic. Liverpool and Barcelona have both left Stamford Bridge empty-handed this season; Arsenal were held 1-1 despite Moises Caicedo’s early red card; and Calum McFarlane’s caretaker stewardship yielded a 1-1 draw at the Etihad against Manchester City. The Club World Cup final demolition of Paris Saint-Germain in June remains the signature statement of the BlueCo era, a night when Chelsea thrived on transition speed rather than patient build-up.

Rosenior must now balance that reactive strength against the fatigue factor: a Champions League round-of-16 tie and an FA Cup quarter-final are shoe-horned into the same six-week window that contains league trips to Arsenal, City and Tottenham. Squad rotation will be non-negotiable, yet the calendar also offers destiny-shaping moments. Beat United and Liverpool and Chelsea vault their direct rivals; take points off Arsenal and City and they become title kingmakers; defeat Tottenham in mid-May and they could relegate their fiercest rivals for the first time in Premier League history.

History offers encouragement. Pochettino’s 2023-24 side finished with five straight wins; Maresca’s 2025-26 edition won five of its last six. To reach last season’s total of 69 points, Chelsea probably need to average 2.2 points per game from here — a tall order, but not unprecedented for a club that has specialised in late surges. The margins are thin, the stakes immense, and the fixture list is the hardest in the division. Whether it is a gauntlet or a gift may depend on which version of Chelsea turns up: the one that over-thinks against a low block, or the one that counter-punches with surgical glee when the elite come to play.