So any Chelsea (or otherwise) fans want to help educate me on this. Pundits are saying Chelsea will be the team to run City close and may even beat them. Why?
They are the same team that got top 4 by the skin of their teeth on Day 38 of last season. They were miles off us in 2nd let alone City in 1st, both of whom have significantly strengthened this summer. I'd understand it if they'd had a mega window but the only purchase is Lukaku, and we know two things about him. He will score against the bottom teams, and he wont score against top teams. And he might even make it more difficult for the rest of the players against top teams.
So given that, I hear lots of Chelsea fans saying its the bottom teams they struggle against but is that really true? Most of their losses last year were comfortable multiple goal victories for bigger teams like Liverpool, Arsenal, City and Leicester, all teams Lukaku will struggle against. They had a few draws but many of those were against big teams where Lukaku wont make a difference or were high scoring draws where goals were not the problem that day.
West Brom 3-3
Southampton 3-3
Manchester United 0-0 (x2)
Spurs 0-0
West Brom 2-5
What's he going to do in those games to change the result? Not a lot. These are the games you could say he will help with:
He could help turn a low scoring draw into a win against Brighton, Leeds, Southampton, Wolves, and he could rescue a point from a narrow loss against Villa and Wolves. That's 10 points extra, at best. But that barely gets you above us and still miles off City.