The mood seems to have improved at Chelsea over the past few games, keyed by a two-goal comeback to win at Southampton a couple weeks ago. Back-to-back solid wins over Burnley and Southampton (again) followed, putting Chelsea are into the FA Cup final for the second year running and closing to gap to Spurs in fourth to “only” five points. If Chelsea were to win out and Spurs were to lose half their remaining games (2 of 4), Chelsea would improbably finish in the top four after all.
While surely not even Spurs can spurs things up that badly — especially considering that three of those games are at home, three of them are against mid-table teams with nothing left to fight for (Leicester, Newcastle, Watford) and the fourth against a team nine toes in the second division already (West Brom) — all Chelsea can do in the meantime is win, starting with Saturday’s trip to Swansea. Win just in case it goes all wrong for Spurs. Win just in case it goes even worse for Liverpool. Win to keep momentum going into the FA Cup final. Win just to win. Just win.
Antonio Conte will address the media on Friday, but we’re assuming that usual suspects are out (David Luiz, Ethan Ampadu, Danny Drinkwater) while Marcos Alonso serves the final match of his three-match suspension.