Desperate times call for desperate arguments. And for Chelsea supporters times are indeed increasingly desperate.
Chelsea was abhorrent against Arsenal on Monday. Didier Drogba was a non-factor. He is also 32 years old and has suffered a broken arm and Malaria this year. If he were a thoroughbred the Humane Society would have stepped in months ago to prevent his owners from racing him. Meanwhile, Carlo Ancelotti spent most of the match scrunched into his trenchcoat scowling with enough fierceness to make the last tortured games of Felipe Scolari's Chelsea tenure look like a cocaine-fuelled touchline party.
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Clinging desperately to fourth spot now appears to be Chelsea's best bet, while finding savings grace in the Champions League. And to be fair, landing the big Euro Cup is probably the main reason Roman Abramovich spent so long pursuing Ancelotti in the first place. I've always been suspicious of the solitary Serie A title the Italian brought with him to London after eight seasons with Milan and wondered if he wasn't built more for cup competitions than for a long grinding league season.
When Milan won the Champions League in 2003 they finished third in Serie A, 11 points off the pace. When Milan almost won the Champions League in 2005 - as in, if they were leading Liverpool 3-0 at halftime in 100 different games in 100 parallel universes they would have gone on to win in 99 of them - they finished in second spot, seven points off the pace. And that's with club officials secretly courting "favourable" refs for their matches. But the most glaring discrepancy comes in 2007, when Milan won the Champions League trophy convincingly despite finishing 36 points back from Inter in fourth place.
Does the fact that Carlo Ancelotti won Champions League trophies several seasons ago with a different team in a different country while simultaneously stinking it up on the domestic front make a strong case to conclude he can do it this year with Chelsea? Not really, but this is exactly the kind of straw sports fans should cling to.
If Chelsea can't win the Premier League than I hope Manchester City does. But I suppose the gag reflex inevitably triggered by Man United or Arsenal winning the Best League in the World That Doesn't Feature the 22 Players in the Starting Elevens of Real Madrid and Barcelona would be happily stifled if Chelsea win the Champions League.
Of course, based on Monday's performance I'm barely expecting Chelsea to get past FC Copenhagen. If they don't I plan on disappearing from the Internet forever.