Assessing the Sporting Directors: Are they doing a good job?

Many think they're not good enough..

So as happens when bad form hits, the sporting directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart are getting a lot of blame. So I decided it was time to do a complete breakdown of what they've actually achieved at Chelsea. Not just in terms of transfers, but their overall work at the club.

This is intended from a completely neutral perspective, I have no agenda to push here, just wanted to objectively analyse the changes they’ve made, both in terms of squad, and sporting structure, including staff and coach hires. I’ll give credit where its due, and respectful criticism where I feel its deserved.

I’m not interested in agenda driven emotional attacks and insults, those are unfair, dehumanising and not constructive. Proper analysis needs to look objectively at all aspects, and context, and that’s what I’m trying to do here. So lets begin.

Sporting Infrastructure

The sporting directors job wasn’t just to rebuild the squad. The owners also tasked them with building an entire sporting infrastructure, including scouting, data analysis, set piece coaching, and the medical department.

I think in this regard they’ve done pretty well. We’ve seen how scouting and data departments of the club have been strengthened and look far better quality than we’ve had there for some time.

We’ve hired a lot of scouts, grown our data department and have a stronger sporting structure at the football club than we did previously. Hires like Sam Jewell are excellent hires for both Chelsea and the BlueCo club network.

The players our scouts are recommending seem to be of a better quality, on a consistent basis. Players we’ve shortlisted who’ve gone elsewhere, like Samuel Omorodion and John Duran, have done well this season. Liam Delap, who now seems to be a major target, is another who seems to be a good recommendation, also pushed by Joe Shields, who himself is probably the best hire the new owners have made.

The sporting directors also overhauled the medical department at Chelsea in the last 18 months, and the number of injuries this season is down dramatically from previous seasons. We’ve hired a set piece coach out of Brentford to oversee a new set piece department at the club. Notably, we’ve conceded far less goals from set pieces this season than last.

Stewart and Winstanley were also responsible for hiring Sonia Bompastor as Chelsea Women’s head coach, who has made a spectacular start to life at Chelsea boss and looks to be on course for a hugely successful season.

They hired Enzo Maresca, who had us 2nd in the PL after 16 games, which no one expected, and despite a poor run, we’re still 4th and only 4 points behind 2nd. So far that hire has been successful in my view.

Mauricio Pochettino was their first managerial hire, and although we finished 6th in the league and got to a cup final, and saw players develop, in the end it turned out to be a poor fit. My theory is they wanted an experienced coach for a year whilst they built the squad and sporting structure before hiring their guy. Pochettino was that, but was never the long term guy - he only got a two year contract, remember, as opposed to Maresca’s 5 years. That wasn’t a total failure, but only moderate success.

Overall though, I think in terms of sporting structure and coaching hires, they’ve done pretty well. We now have a stable sporting structure behind the scenes, with no constant changes outside the head coach - unlike a certain other club in the PL who sacked a sporting director they paid £3m for after 5 months. I have faith in our scouts to identify top talent. This structure should stand us in good stead for years to come.

Which brings me to the next, and slightly more complex section.

The Playing Squad (Mens)

So the sporting directors briefed through the media more than once, for over 6 months, how they wanted to have the core of the squad done by the end of the summer window in 2025.

What you define as ‘core’ can vary from one person to another. But to me that was simply to have at least 15-20 players you know will be at the club for the long term, and some basic depth in every position.

So lets go through their signings and see which of them has been successful, which the jury is still out on, and which can be deemed failures.

Now just for clarity, success means they’ve been part of our first team squad and contributed to positive results on a fairly regular basis, or shown sufficient ability at their loan clubs that its clear they’re ready for Chelsea - I’m not just talking about the obvious elite successes like Cole Palmer. I’m focussing on first team signings rather than signings for the academy, and I’m also leaving out players like Aaron Anselmino and Mike Penders as most of us haven’t seen enough of them to make a judgement. Davide Washington was signed for the development squad and isn’t currently in the first team squad so its too soon to judge that one. I’m also leaving out Omari Kellyman as he's been injured since he joined us.

Andrey Santos and Lesely Ugochukwu have played in the PL and even for us (Santos played in pre-season), and so are included. Many of us have watched a lot of Estevao Willain and Kendry Paez, who are both now full internationals, both set for our first team squad, so they can be included.

Taking that into account, here are their signings since they began work in January 2023:

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Mykhailo Mudryk £62m - jury out

Benoît Badiashile £32m - jury out

Noni Madueke £30m - relative success

Andrey Santos £12m - success/promising

David Datro Fofana £12m - failure

Malo Gusto £26m - relative success

Enzo Fernández £105m - success

Moises Caicedo £115m - success

Romeo Lavia £58m - relative success

Christopher Nkunku £53m - relative success but likely to be sold

Cole Palmer £42m - huge success

Axel Disasi £38.70m - failure, needs to be sold

Nicolas Jackson £32m - success

Lesley Ugochukwu - £23m - promising

Robert Sanchez - £19.80m - need to be sold

Djordje Petrovic - £14m - jury out, will probably be sold

Pedro Neto £54m - relative success

Joao Felix £45m - jury out

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall £30m - should be sold this summer

Filip Jørgensen £21m - promising

Renato Veiga £14m - promising

Jadon Sancho - £20m - success

Marc Guiu £6m - promising

Estevao Willian - £29m - promising

Kendry Paez - £18m - promising

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I accept I’ve probably been kind with some of these, I just don’t like writing players off as failures quickly apart from unusual circumstances (Like Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, for example).

Now there’s a lot of players there for who the jury is out, or have been a failure. Axel Disasi, Robert Sanchez, Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall, David Datro-Fofana, Benoit Badiashile, and Mikhylo Mudryk all notable names in that list. Djorde Petrovic was a good signing but will probably be moved on. I suspect within the next 18 months all of those will be sold. Joao Felix seems not to be trusted by Enzo Maresca, and could depart in the next 18 months if that continues.

If all those don’t work out, that's £250m which has been spent on players who’ve not turned into remotely good investments. That’s a lot of money wasted by the Sporting Directors. Now of course, not all signings will work out whoever is making the decisions, but thats a huge chunk of change and the Sporting Directors need to take responsibility for that.

On the other hand, £604m of their spending has been spent well - gems like Andrey Santos, Estevao Willian and Marc Guiu, shrewd signings like Renato Veiga for just £14m (no idea why they want to sell him) and Jadon Sancho, who looks a bargain at £20-25m. Our midfield signings have been excellent overall, Dewsbury-Hall apart. Nicolas Jackson looks a great deal for just £32m and of course, Cole Palmer for £42m has proved to be amazing business.

The sporting directors have also successfully negotiated a long term contract for Josh Acheampong and overseen his integration into the first team squad, which looks a great move. Levi Colwill signed a 7 year deal last year and is part of the long term future.

I would argue losing the likes of Conor Gallagher - I think we could have used him this season, personally - and Trevoh Chalobah, and the rough treatment they received, can be seen as a failure.

I do believe exiling Conor Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah, which very much came across like they were being forced out of the club, to which both had been loyal, was really poor man management.

The new they are considering bringing Chalobah back after that treatment, seems odd at best, unfair at worst.

The sporting directors might see their departures as a success and the reality is, we needed money for PSR reasons, but I think Chelsea would have been better off this season with them around. Trev is better, and more suited to Maresca’s style, than Disasi, and would have saved us £38m.

Losing Lewis Hall now looks even more embarrassing, he’s getting England shouts with his performances for Newcastle. We don’t know the full ins and outs of that move but it looks bad on paper. The only solace is we now have Marc Cucurella playing the best football of his career at LB, meaning Hall hasn’t been missed too much. But even then it was, to me, a poor decision, even though I get that we needed PSR money.

Criticism aside - and there’s plenty to criticise - I do believe we now have a core of 14-16 players who can be with us for the next 5 years or more. We also have Estevao Willian, Andrey Santos, Lesley Ugochukwu and Aaron Anselmino who we already own who could come into the squad next season, with Kendry Paez to follow a year later.

However we still require a strong, powerhouse centre forward to compete with Nicolas Jackson and challenge him for his place, a commanding, proven CB with leadership qualities, and a top class GK. These are key areas which should have been addressed previously, but are still not resolved. There’s an argument we still need genuine competition at LB for Marc Cucurella too.

Having been told the squad would largely be complete by now, and still needing those key players, is poor from the Sporting Directors. No way around it. Their talent ID is relatively good, but squad building is a specific skill, and we’re still short there.

I think they’ve had relative success in building the core of a squad, those 14-16 players I think will stick around for a while, and with young talent who will join the squad, and they deserve credit for that.

But not solving those key positions yet, is a black mark against them.

The squad is clearly not complete, as we were promised, and its clear from recent games Enzo Maresca doesn’t trust some players in his squad to compete in the Premier League. Maresca seems to want to make 2-3 signings this window, so its clear he’s not happy with the squad. So there’s still work to do, even this window, to ensure top 4 status, and even more to do to make us title contenders.

The fact there’s still work to do in key areas despite all the spending and certain areas keep getting ignored, is a major failure on the part of the sporting directors, there’s no sugar coating it. It’s something which needs rectifying as soon as possible. In terms of squad building, they’ve not done as well as they should have, given the money spent, and improvements are necessary.

So are Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart doing a good job? I think they’re doing better than average, but not the level we need them to be. I wouldn’t say they’re doing an awful job but its not a world class job either, there’s a lot for them to improve on.

To their credit, there’ve been plenty of transfer successes and the infrastructure rebuild has been very good in my view. Their coaching appointments overall I think have been good, mens and womens.

But they certainly have made a lot of mistakes too, and could have done better in some areas, so there’s no doubt, there’s a fair bit of criticism which is absolutely deserved.

We should be in a better position with our squad now than we are, given the money invested, there’s no doubt about that.

We can only hope their next moves, in this January market and the summer, both in and out, are the right ones which set us up to compete at a higher level next season.

The Score