We have been, I think it’s fair to say, in some fairly unique territory this month. Certainly no period quite like it in the recent history of our club comes to mind, although, in terms of actual endangerment at an existential level, I imagine those who heard the FA suspend all football until further notice in September 1939, before re-starting a restricted programme with no crowds over 8000 at grounds, like Stamford Bridge, in evacuation areas, would have had even stronger reasons to feel anxious about what the future might hold for their football team. Frankly those of us who remember the club practically going under in the 1980s might feel we’ve known clouds a bit more threatening than the current ones, too.But, as I say, there are definitely unique aspects to what those of us who support Chelsea have found ourselves facing and thinking about these past five weeks. Who, for instance, ever envisaged that our club would spend some portion of the 2021/22 season as a sort of semi-frozen asset? And I’m sure we’ve all enjoyed gradually discovering what being a semi-frozen asset actually means in terms of the day-to-day running of the club, its ability to pay its staff, sell tickets, ultimately apportion itself to another owner, and so on.All sorts of misinformation and rumours have flowed, inevitably, into the broad channel left by the lack of clarity at the beginning of all this, and I, for one, have found myself believing at various times this month that I would not be able to get a cup of coffee at the Newcastle game (I was), that coffee would actually be free at the Newcastle game (it wasn’t), that there would be no programmes (there weren’t, unless you were in a part of the ground that gets them free, in which case there were), and that I wouldn’t get the chance to take my seat for our Champions League game against Real Madrid (I will, this morning), nor get a ticket for our FA Cup semi-final against Crystal Palace (I will, next week).

Meanwhile, tickets could not be sold for WSL games, but now can, which is great, on the grounds that there would be empty stands at those games otherwise. Yet tickets still can’t be sold for the PL game at home to Arsenal, a decision which, by my calculation, will leave the equivalent of one and half stands empty, and which is certainly less than great for members, who have paid in advance for the right to be in the running for those soon to be empty seats.But, of course, the lines could all shift again. The picture is still clarifying, nearly a month on from the original announcement, and let’s at least say that it’s quite a bit less muddy, and a lot less obstructive, than it was when it was first shown to us.Again, though, it was very hard to see any of this coming when the season opened last August, back in those now strangely innocent days when all we had to worry about was a highly infectious global pandemic. As I recall, nobody back then was predicting that anything Liz Truss or Nadine Dorries did or thought would have much bearing on morale in our dressing room as our push for a top-four place entered the crucial spring phase, or that our club’s owner would be attending more bi-lateral peace meetings in Turkey this season than he would games at the Bridge. Unless I simply didn’t see it, literally nobody, and not even American intelligence, had these things on their 2021/22 bingo card.

And of course preparing for what cannot be seen coming down the track is notoriously difficult, if not impossible. Which is why the reaction to all this of the coaching and playing staff has been so incredible.In professional sport, people talk about ‘noise’ and the importance of shutting it out and tuning in tightly on the things you can affect. But those of us not in sport surely know that it must be far easier said than done. The truth is, the noise this March has been so loud at certain points that it could have been almost impossible to hear yourself playing football.Meanwhile, for our players, ahead lay six games in three competitions against three levels of opponent: Championship, Premier League and wherever France’s La Ligue currently sits on that scale. Three of those games were high-stakes knockout matches away from home against highly motivated opponents. The other three were Premier League fixtures against relegation-endangered sides in various degrees of self-salvaging form. And only one of those games afforded the team and staff the relatively safe harbour and serenity of the Bridge.It was if some particularly malicious fate was saying: ‘You would probably, in the circumstances, really like to hunker down at home right now and take some time to breathe and reflect among your own people; so here’s practically a month-long road trip for you. Let us know how you get on.’Well, here’s how we did get on: six consecutive victories featuring 12 goals and only two concessions, and extending to 14 games an unbeaten run (not including penalty shoot-outs) which now goes back two and a half months to 15 January. Consistency being the hardest sporting trick of all, the continuation of normal service is always to be admired. But the continuation of normal service in such potentially disruptive conditions... well, it made you proud, is what it made you.

If there’s any justice, what history will record is not how March 2022 was among the rockiest ever months in the story of this club, but how this manager and these players somehow kept their heads clear and prevented it becoming even more so. And if that continues, then the big question about this time next month isn’t where we’ll be, and certainly not if we’ll be, but merely whose we’ll be.