If it wasn’t for Andre Villas-Boas’ failure to make an immediate impact at Chelsea, something that he undoubtedly intended to do given his insistence that “there is no calling this a year of transition,” earlier in the season, despite evidently being in a year of transition – something that has become painstakingly obvious to the rest of the world who hadn’t already realised it was underway, thanks to Villas-Boas all but admitting the transition by stating, “we have a three-year project to change, not only the team but, the culture and structure of the club” – Arsenal’s season would be dead right now. Luckily for Arsene Wenger, they still have the much-coveted “trophy” of fourth place to cling on to.

Meanwhile, Arsenal’s season has taken a rather different path to Chelsea’s, yet both teams are still going into the last thirteen games on level points (43) and the same goal difference (13). The only thing that currently keeps Arsenal in the top four over Chelsea, a position Arsene Wenger has never finished below during his Arsenal career, is the 22-goal Robin van Persie, rather than a 2-goal Fernando Torres.

Chelsea’s defence has been marginally tighter than Arsenal’s (I emphasize marginally) and whilst both teams have suffered defensively this season, with Chelsea’s Mourinho-instilled focus on strong foundations at the back finally all but fading out as Villas-Boas adopts a risk-taking and attacking defence, and Arsenal’s back four providing all but stability or consistency, with a total of eleven plays being used across the back, if The Blues were going to pip The Gunners to fourth place, it would be won at the back.

However, news that John Terry – who was set to be risked by the Portuguese boss against Napoli, a clear indication of just how important Terry is to Chelsea, despite not being quite the player he was a few years ago – is out for two months, could scupper Villas-Boas’ chances of Chelsea finishing in a Champions League spot and mount further pressure on the 34-year old.

John Terry suffered a blow to his knee in a collision with the goalpost in Chelsea’s F.A. Cup victory over Championship Portsmouth on January 7^th: an injury he played through for two more games. Since then, The Blues have failed to keep a clean sheet and have slipped from 4^th place and just four points off of 3^rd and six clear of seventh, to 5^th place, where 3^rd seems unreachable at 10 points away and 7^th placed Liverpool have closed the gap by two.

The reading doesn’t get much better for Chelsea fans as not only are Chelsea without a clean sheet in a Terry-less side so far this season, but in addition, last season Chelsea kept just one of their 15 clean sheets without Terry, in a season in which the centre-back missed 5 games. Last campaign, Chelsea kept a clean sheet with Terry 42% of the time and without him, just 20% of the time. This season, Chelsea have kept a clean sheet 27% of the time in which John Terry has played and without him, it currently stands at 0%.

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