Chelsea are hoping to avoid a disastrous end to the season, with the Blues facing a battle to secure Champions League qualification. They currently sit fourth in the Premier League table but there is plenty of room for things to go wrong over the next nine matches. They were tipped as title challengers only a few months ago but have endured a dramatic fall from grace.
After only four league wins since the turn of the year, the west Londoners will certainly need to improve their form to stand the best chance of ending the season in a positive way. Football is notoriously unpredictable, though, with a string of potential setbacks threatening to make it an impossible task.
Express Sport looks at three nightmare scenarios that would leave a sour taste at Stamford Bridge…
Palmer suffers injury hell
Chelsea sorely missed Cole Palmer when he was injured for their defeat to Arsenal, a game in which they never really threatened to score. They are optimistic that he will return after the international break, but any further setbacks would be catastrophic.
If he aggravates the problem, it would force Chelsea to keep treading water in the absence of their best player. With games against Liverpool and Newcastle coming up, such a blow would do serious damage to their hopes of achieving a top-four finish.
Even though Palmer went through a dry spell before his injury, a return to form is surely inevitable and would go a long way to helping Chelsea achieve their goals.
Enzo Maresca will quite simply be desperate for his star man to return as quickly as possible. He will be fully aware that Chelsea’s season could unravel without Palmer pulling the strings in attack.
The unthinkable happens
It is hard to envisage a world in which Chelsea fail to win the Conference League, which would be their first trophy since their Club World Cup triumph in 2022.
They are the strongest team left in the competition by a huge distance, with Real Betis and Fiorentina their only real rivals. Even though the odds are heavily stacked in Chelsea’s favour, they will need to perform at their best to steer clear of any embarrassing slip-ups.
A surprise quarter-final defeat to Legia Warsaw would be nothing short of disastrous for the Blues. Any positive feeling around the club would surely evaporate in the knowledge they had blown such a golden opportunity to end their trophy drought.
It would also make life extremely difficult for Maresca, who might struggle to keep his job after overseeing another fruitless campaign. If he were to stay on, the amount of pressure heading into next season would be almost unbearable.
Sancho stays at Chelsea
Chelsea are reportedly thinking about sending Jadon Sancho back to Manchester United at the end of his loan spell. There is a clause in his contract that would allow the Blues to remove their obligation to buy with a £5million payment to the Red Devils.
Activating this clause would be the logical choice, given that Sancho has only scored twice in 29 appearances. Keeping a player on such high wages with so little output would only add to the list of problems facing Chelsea ahead of next season.
There is little to suggest that Sancho is going to get much better, having failed to make the grade at United before falling short again at Stamford Bridge. He has only excelled at Borussia Dortmund in an entirely different environment to that of Chelsea.
The obligation to buy would involve Chelsea paying between £20m and £25m for a player who is simply not good enough. This would be a crazy decision that must be avoided if the Blues are serious about challenging for domestic glory next season.