A tale of two Chelsea's
This week is unacceptable..but expected with injuries, inexperience, and poor squad building
So the last 4 games have shown the two sides of this Chelsea team. Barcelona and Arsenal, brilliant performances, tons of energy, great mentality, work ethic, quality and we beat Barca and almost beat Arsenal with 10 men.
Then against Leeds we were out-fought, out-thought, and played probably our worst game under head coach Enzo Maresca. Finally Bournemouth, they didn’t play well and didn’t create much, but we showed no energy, no intensity, didn’t play well, and drew the game.
So lets be clear, because I’m suddenly seeing people question the quality of our team. We have a really good first choice team. That team when fit and in form can beat anyone. Partly due to the quality, partly down to Enzo Maresca’s coaching and tactics. We’ve seen that.
The likes of Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo, Marc Cucurella, Wesley Fofana, Levi Colwill, Reece James, Pedro Neto, Estevao Willian, Josh Acheampong and even Joao Pedro in the club world cup, have all shown what ability they have. Andrey Santos, Trevoh Chalobah, Robert Sanchez, Malo Gusto have all been solid performers too and played an important role.
We’re also the third highest scorers in the PL this season and very high on chances created, before Cole Palmer came back, so to say we’re not good attacking wise is literally fiction. Writing off new young players like Liam Delap and Jamie Gittens is also ridiculous.
Liam Delap has started 5 games all season and played less than 5 games in terms of minutes, and had two major long term injuries now.
Jamie Gittens has made 8 starts, and has 1 goal and 5 assists.
I’m as angry and frustrated as anyone at the poor results and performances. In fact today I was even more frustrated than I was midweek. However, writing players off and forming judgements when we’ve had one or two bad results is just reactionary nonsense to me. If you’re not gonna say it when we’re doing well, don’t say it just because you want a scapegoat for bad results.
The reason we’ve not done well the last couple of games, to me, is not simply a lack of quality in the squad. To me there’s a lot of players who are still developing mentally and psychologically, and sometimes can’t get themselves up for the smaller games - especially not after two big games and big emotional highs like Barcelona and Arsenal.
The likes of Reece James, Enzo Fernandez, Marc Cucurella (when he’s not fatigued), Robert Sanchez, Pedro Neto maybe even Cole Palmer (when fully fit), seem to be able to motivate themselves regardless. But there’s also a lot of players - mainly younger players - who find this more difficult. Partly down to inexperience, partly due to lack of maturity, which you often find in younger squads.
I don’t think buying experienced players alone is the answer. Tosin is one of our most experienced players and he’s been goddam awful this season.
The thing is problem is almost by design. The owners plan, enacted by the Sporting Directors (the “two geniuses”), is to build and develop a top side to compete consistently at the elite level, winning the big trophies consistently. But they want to do it sustainably, and they believe investing in young talent ultimately saves you money in the long term. A young team develops together and then stays together, without much need for change, and you can still bring in the best young talent relatively cheaply behind them, which ultimately saves money.
They don’t want to spend big money on a team which will win for 3-4 years, and then you have to spend another billion replacing it. You sign a bunch of 27 year olds, in 4 years you need to begin replacing them for just as much - it’s simply not sustainable.
In the age of FFP and financial restrictions, I’m still convinced the strategy we have is probably the best way to build long term and sustainable success. It costs you short term - which is what we’re literally seeing right now - but long term, they think this pays off.
They want success sustainably, every season, with a team which can keep on being successful for a long time and are prepared to wait for it. Fans always want immediate success, but the club have their strategy.
And people who say “we’re worse this season”. I’d like to say that by this point ast season we had the following:
Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill and Wesley Fofana fit all season.
A striker fit all season and scoring some goals.
Barely had any injuries.
No Champions League football (which demands first choice players starting), but had Conference League where we could rotate the entire team and win
You can’t expect to be missing Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill, Wesley Fofana, Liam Delap (our only pure 9), have two of your backup midfielders injured, have Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez and Joao Pedro playing in pain, with Champions League football, and perform at your best level consistently.
Until the Arsenal game we were actually ahead on points this season from last season, without Palmer, Colwill, two midfielders and a proper 9. At one point the top scorers in the league. Indeed we’re still 3rd top scorers.
Now we have Liam Delap injured again, so again have no proper 9. Cole Palmer is still finding his sharpness. Enzo Fernandez isn’t getting any rest at all due to injuries, Caicedo is suspended and his backup is also injured, and is carrying a knee issue. Wesley Fofana can only play once a week, Reece James needs to be managed too. Romeo Lavia has been injured for almost three years and it honestly looks like he has to be moved on and another midfielder of his profile recruited. A profile which would impact us very positively against low blocks and generally.
So we’ve got a lot of ongoing issues to manage whilst still getting results. This is a situation which isn’t easy for any coach or club to manage.
Also, one additional problem is recruitment. For over a YEAR Enzo Maresca has demanded a starting CB to come straight in, like Marc Guehi or Murillo - if we’d had either, we’d have more points right now - and been totally ignored.
Both names I listed - and there are others - fit with the age profile we want, both PL proven CBs. These are deals we could have done and improved our squad quickly whilst still keeping within club’s long term strategy. You could even sell Tosin and Benoit Badiashile and add one of them plus one of Aaron Anselmino or Mamadou Sarr, our two on loan CBs.
But no, our two best in class geniuses with literally NO experience in building any team, yet alone a winning team, know best. The two geniuses whose biggest spend on a CB since they joined in Jan 2023 is £38m for Axel Disasi, currently playing for the U21s.
Yes, that’s true. Our top two CBs signings in terms of fee under these owners are Wesley Fofana (£69m) and Axel Disasi (£38m). Its genuinely shocking this is where we are after 3 years of these SD’s and owners.
But of course, they know best. I mean only geniuses would pay £40m for Joao Felix, loan him after 6 months and then not make any profit selling him to Saudi, right?
My apologies for the sarcasm there, but sometimes you just have to laugh at the absurdity of the decision making. Goodness knows what the new guy who has actually built winning squads and worked at a big club thinks of them.
The point is, currently we’re a top 4 squad, capable of winning knockout competitions. Like a less experienced version of Chelsea between 2018-2022 under Sarri, Lampard and Tuchel. That team only got top 4, always went inconsistent around December, and won knockout trophies - like this team.
So results like this week are likely going to happen this season on occasion, I’m resigned to this. It doesn’t make them acceptable, but they may happen occasionally.
But what will also happen is good runs of form, as we saw last season and have seen this season. We’ve actually only lost 2 of our last 14 games in all competitions, winning 9. So although we’ve had a bad week, overall we’re not in that bad of a position.
What needs to happen is the leaders in the squad and Enzo Maresca need to work with the squad to improve the mentality, the character of the squad. They need to learn from this week and get better, and get winning ASAP.
That’s on the players and the manager. They’ve not been helped by the squad building and injuries, which are both out of their control, so I don’t expect us to suddenly become title contenders, but hopefully it does become a turning point of some kind in the medium/long term.
We have a big Champions League game this week, so hopefully we can get ourselves motivated for that. Cole Palmer will have more sharpness so hopefully we can see more of his quality too. We need to get a win to end this short run, regardless of how it comes.
I’m still very confident Chelsea will end up in the top 4 and potentially with a trophy this season. We’re about where I expected given the injuries, the lack of cover at CB and the place we are as a squad.
We just have to get ourselves right motivationally and mentally, and get some confidence back. Bitching and arguing amongst ourselves on socials won’t help the team right now in my view, but tough decisions and actions DO need to be made by all concerned.
This week wasn’t good enough, and form needs to be turned around quickly.
The Score