defeat to ended ’s chances of salvaging anything positive from a miserable season.
Having sacked Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter and seemingly destined to finish in mid-table despite spending around £600million on players, it’s been a baptism of fire for the new ownership group led by Todd Boehly.
So with restless fans at Stamford Bridge facing up to the club’s worst season in over 25 years, where do the beleaguered Blues go from here?
Just stop talking, Todd
This is all new to , we get that. And there is likely far more substance to the hugely successful businessman’s leadership of Chelsea than some of the more unfortunate stuff that makes it to print and social media.
But hearing Todd tell fans Chelsea will beat Madrid 3-0 when they haven’t scored a goal since the clocks went forward must have had even neutrals hankering for Roman Abramovich’s two-decade vow of silence.
Boehly perhaps feels hiding away when the chips are down is a bad look but is it any worse than the and ? Right now, silence might well be the better option.
Find a middle man
There’s a theory out there that Boehly is merely the public face of Chelsea’s American leadership, with co-owner Behdad Eghbali wielding the real power. If not quite the useful idiot then maybe the willing stooge. Which would be fine if Eghbali had any more experience of top-level European football than his business partner. But he doesn’t.
Co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart are said to be leading the search for the club’s third permanent manager in a year and are in charge of transfers but there is little doubt the £600million they have spent on players – not to mention the sacking of Thomas Tuchel, the hiring and firing of Graham Potter and the ill-fated return of Frank Lampard as a placeholder – were inspired by Boehly/Eghbali.
If the co-owners feel they have the best people in place to run the football side of the operation off the field then surely it is time to step back and trust them to get on with it.
No.9 is not the only issue
There was a bit too much ‘if only they had someone to stick the ball in the net’ in the reaction to . Investing more than half-a-billion quid in the squad without buying a top-level striker is an unfortunate oversight, but it is too convenient to blame all Chelsea’s ills on the lack of a decent No.9.
Manchester United have flourished since Christmas with shot-shy Wout Weghorst at centre-forward and Marcus Rashford going goal crazy from the kind of wide forward position Chelsea have invested huge sums in since last summer. Madrid may have Karim Benzema but three of the four goals they scored against the Blues in the past week came from other sources.
If Potter or Lampard had installed any kind of attacking identity in their teams maybe one, some or all of Raheem Sterling, Christian Pulisic, Mykhailo Mudryk, Hakim Ziyech, Mason Mount, Kai Havertz, Conor Gallagher or Joao Felix might have chipped in with more than the odd goal or two.
Seller beware
Two expensive and expansive transfer windows have left Chelsea’s new regime with issues that can’t be resolved simply by extending the Cobham changing rooms or running multiple training matches. Clearlake Capital may have deep pockets but to duck under the Financial Fair Play barrier as well as buyers this summer, with some pundits earmarking homegrown talent for departures.
But this is a balancing act that could easily go wrong. While drumming up an may raise cash without significantly weakening the squad, does the make similar sense? Chelsea fans are already finding it hard to relate to their new-look club. Shipping out ‘one (or two) of our own’ might only worsen the identity crisis.
New man needs time
or , Chelsea have to get their next appointment right. But just as importantly, they need to give them time. However bad the mismanagement, this season is as bad as it gets at Stamford Bridge – clubs this size don’t go down these days.
So allow the new man to build from Year Zero and give him the players he needs to make it work, rather than the ones catching the attention of your rivals or being puffed up by whichever agent is flavour of the month.
Chelsea’s ability to thrive and win consistently amid the relative instability of the Abramovich regime was remarkable. This is a resilient club who can rebound, but it will take two things in short supply recently – time and patience.
