It seems that Chelsea will have to focus on the league cup and other related lower cups in England but for the English premier League, it is becoming obvious that Chelsea might make the top 4 again this year. My interest is no about Chelsea improving theoretically, the problems is how many matches have they won. In the England, if you don't win matches you will not be feared and one of the factors that make teams win matches is their ability to humiliate other teams. If your team has lost that fear, the can be played by anyone as ordinary team and that is the worse than could happen to anyone.
I think Chelsea is focusing more of their energy on the premier league compared to the league cup because they want to reach a better level by the end of the competition. I think Pochettino was targeting a top 4 position in his first season with Chelsea and they have been able to improve their performance in their last few games. Currently chelsea is in 10th place in the standings and they are 8 points adrift of Liverpool in 4th place.
I think they have to work extra hard in the next match so they don't lose any more points. In this week's match, Chelsea will face Brentford, where they might be able to maximize their chances of getting 3 points in order to improve their ranking in the standings table. And in November Chelsea will face quite tough opponents such as Tottenham, Manchester City, Newcastle United and Brighton.