Is Hiddink crazy, or can Chelsea really still claim a top four spot?

Guus Hiddink was targeting a strong season finale for Chelsea after a 2-1 win at Carrow Road which sent Norwich into the relegation zone.

Chelsea climbed to eighth, five points behind fifth-placed Manchester United and eight adrift of fourth-placed Manchester City with their third straight Premier League win, which came amid controversy as Diego Costa's decisive goal came from an offside position.

And while Blues have long assumed that the club's only route to Europe next season will come by lifting either the FA Cup or Champions League trophies, Chelsea's Dutch caretaker manager believes that there is a chance they can qualify via the league - and perhaps even finish in the top four.

"We have now won a few games in a row. We have to keep on winning," the Chelsea interim boss said.

"Now with the ambition of Chelsea we must set a new target and see what we can do in the direction of Europe.

"If everyone is on board and there are no big injuries, we'd like to go as high as possible towards European spots."

Chelsea scored after 39 seconds - Kenedy netting the fastest goal of the Premier League season so far - but the Blues took their time killing the game off and were pushed to the end, with Hiddink suggesting that the players will need to sharpen up their finishing.

"We had a splendid start from Kenedy, a beautiful goal. After that we had options for a second. We should've killed it off already," Hiddink added.

"I'm satisfied about the result, but I like to always be a bit more critical. We were a bit sloppy in finishing off."

Chelsea star Nemanja Matic is also bullish about the club's chances: "It is very important to win games. We are a big team and have to keep doing this if we are to get closer to the first four.

"I know it's very difficult to catch them but we will give our best to win every game from now on.

"I know that is very hard, maybe impossible, but in football anything can happen. We will take it step by step."

Outgoing Blues legend John Terry actually made similar sounds a few weeks ago in January: "Anything is doable. Everybody is beating everybody else. It is a tough league and if we put a run together we have a good chance. We are not writing anything off.”

With Leicester, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United all having their struggles since then, Terry's words now look oddly prophetic.

Guus Hiddink is still yet to lose a match in his latest stint as Chelsea manager

After a terrible start to the season, Diego Costa now has eight goals in his last ten matches in the league

The historic average points needed for a top four finish is 70, and even ten wins from their final ten games would only get Chelsea to 69. But with the top four all losing matches regularly, it now seems that the likely points target to make fourth place could approach the previous low mark of 60, set by Liverpool in 2004. Chelsea would only need seven wins in their last ten matches to hit that total - something which looks incredibly likely given their present form. There is a caveat, however: after the first round of matches in March 2004, Newcastle and Birmingham (Birmingham!) were joint fourth on 42 points. The Reds were sixth on 39 - the same as Chelsea have at the moment. They had a fair bit less catching up to do.

In 2010-11, Arsenal finished fourth with 68 points. At this stage of the season, the Gunners had 56 points and were second; Chelsea were fourth at the time on 48 points and Spurs fifth on 47 points. As of Wednesday, second-placed Spurs have 54 points, fourth-placed City have 47 and fifth-placed United have 44. That strongly suggests that each side will end up with a couple of points less this season, so 66 could well be the target for the Blues. For that, they'd need nine wins in their last ten matches. Difficult, yes, but it allows them just a little breathing space.

Having been written off at Christmas, Chelsea have been cut to as low as 14/1 to make the top four. That makes them joint sixth favourites to do so: Spurs, Arsenal, Leicester and City are all hugely odds-on to make the top four (typically between 1/40 and 1/8 on), while Manchester United are at 3/1 and Liverpool are level with the Blues at 14/1 - though some bookies will offer 20/1 or even 25/1 on the latter two making the cut.

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