Winter is here and Chelsea have just one win in four, just three wins in seven, and three of our last four home games since the 7-0 shellacking of Norwich City have ended in a 1-1 draw. Oh, and we’ve dropped out of first place in both the Premier League and our Champions League group, thanks largely to goals conceded in the final minutes of our last two matches.

So yeah, the vibes are not great, especially compared to where they were just a few short weeks ago.

But just as quickly as things can change for the negative, they can change for the positive as well. And Saturday’s match against one-time rivals Leeds United is a perfect place to begin this latest turning point.

The injury situation unfortunately remains concerning, with N’Golo Kanté, Ben Chilwell, Trevoh Chalobah still out and Mateo Kovačić isolating due to a positive COVID test. Meanwhile, both Jorginho and Ruben Loftus-Cheek are dealing with knocks of unspecified severities that caused them to miss the game against Zenit (Ruben picking up said knock in the warm-ups in fact).

On the plus side, Romelu Lukaku made his first start in ages, Timo Werner seems to be in good form, and Thiago Silva, Antonio Rüdiger, and Édouard Mendy got to rest physically and mentally as well. Time to make Chelsea hard to beat again!