Chelsea haven't really been serious for 15 years (or how Man City spent less than Chelsea and won much more)

You'd be surprised...

It’s just over 20 years since arguably the best Chelsea side of all time won the Premier League for the first time. Since then, we’ve won the league just 4 more times, the last time being in 2017.

There’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about when Chelsea are going to be “serious” again. In this context, there’s been this story which some told, that we suddenly stopped being a serious team when Roman Abramovich sold the club.

But the facts tell a different story.

First, by “serious” I mean challenging for the Premier League title almost every season, finishing within 5-6 points of the PL winners, and winning it every two or three years at least. This is what serious clubs do.

Serious clubs are not just good cup sides who win the occasional European trophy but never challenge for the league. They’re semi-serious, but the top clubs win the league, as well as the Champions League.

Just for the sake of this article, winning the Champions League, is not counting for me. Harsh maybe, as its arguably the biggest trophy of all and we’ve won it twice. But the thing is, Liverpool won it in 2005 with a team who finished 5th in the league. Chelsea ourselves won it when we finished 6th. The best team in Europe doesn’t always win it.

However, the best team always, always wins the league. Without fail. You can’t fluke a league title or win it solely on lucky decisions. You have to be the best. If that sounds brutal, that’s the standard. Lets stop pissing around with knockout cups thinking that makes us a serious team. It doesn’t. It makes us a very good team, but I want Chelsea to be a great team. Whilst we should celebrate every trophy, we also need to stop settling as a club for knockout competition wins which paper over the cracks, and keep our eyes on the big prize.

And in my view, we have kinda settled for knockout trophies and a few European trophies in the main, for over 15 years. Including me. That’s not enough.

Also I want to note as well. Roman Abramovich, solely as an owner of a football club, did an incredible job at Chelsea. He transformed our club and made my and others dreams come true. We owe so much to him, and I and all of us should be grateful for what he did for the club.

However, I actually think we could have won even more under his ownership, and would have more under our current owners, if we’d had more stability at manager level.

For the sake of this article, I’m going to compare us with Manchester City, the dominant club of the last 15 or 16 years and the one we should be aspiring to be. That’s the level Chelsea should be at given our spending, and I’m not going to apologise for it.

I’m going to begin this assessment from the summer of 2010, just after we won the league under Carlo Ancelotti.

So first let’s look at the respective spends of the two clubs since then. This is the argument everyone always uses to support City’s dominance. So here’s the gross spend by Chelsea and Manchester City on players since 2010 (all stats are from Transfermarkt):

Chelsea: £3.1 billion

Man City: £2 billion

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. Chelsea have spent a clear BILLION more than Man City since 2010.

But I know, £1.6 billion of Chelsea’s spend is under Clearlake, since 2022. So for arguments sake let’s look at Chelsea and Man City’s spending between 2010-2022, when Roman Abramovich owned the club:

Chelsea £1.5 billion

Man City. £1.49 billion

So under Roman Abramovich, we didn’t just match, we actually EXCEEDED Man City’s spending between 2010-2022.

Between 2010 and 2022, here’s the respective tiitle challenges:

Chelsea: 4 title challenges, 2 titles

Man City: 12 title challenges, 8 titles

So for the same money spent, Man City have challenged for the title 3 times as much as us, and won it 4 times as much

So if it’s not the money, what is it?

This is this big argument. Because a lot of Chelsea fans say “yeah hire and fire wasn’t great but it worked for us”. But did it? Really?

Chelsea have had 11 permanent managers since summer 2010. A new permanent manager every 16 months. And that’s not even including about 2 seasons worth of interim managers. Take that into account, and its a permanent manager every 14 months.

Manchester City meanwhile have had 3 permanent managers. A manager every 5 years.The shortest reign of the last 3 City managers is Manuel Pelligrini with 3 years in charge. For context, the last Chelsea manager to do 3 full years was Jose Mourinho between 2004-2007, nearly 20 years ago.

And look at the difference in the level of success.

Chelsea have won 2 PL titles in that period, Man City have won 8.

In terms of trophies overall, Chelsea have won 13 trophies since 2010. Man City have won 20.

Between 2010-2022, Chelsea won 11 trophies Man City won 15.

People keep saying sacking managers helps us get success, but its only knockout success it brings. Chelsea have not won the Premier League ONCE when sacking a manager mid season. Not once. In fact, we’ve only challenged for the league once when doing that, under Avram Grant in 2007/08. More proof that you cannot dominate a league with a hire fire policy.

In the Clearlake era we’ve spent £1.6 billion on players and Man City have spent £500m. Though it should be noted, Man City were starting from a much higher foundation than us, who have rebuilt an entire 25 man squad, who’d not challenged for the league for years. However, even taking this into account, we’ve still spent significantly more.

We’ve had 4 permanent managers since 2022, and Man City have had just 1. Again, the money is great, but if you don’t have stability at manager level, and you don’t buy well, its not going to get you success.

In fact, in almost every significant metric between 2010 and 2022, and those including the Clearlake era, Man City have dominated Chelsea in terms of league titles and trophies overall. For nearly 16 years. The only metric we dominate is the number of managers, and that’s clearly not done us much good.

The harsh reality for the owners and Sporting Directors is that unless they start building our squad properly, they can spend as much as they like, but it won’t deliver any Premier League titles. You have build an elite squad, with elite depth and recruit properly and seriously. You need to act like a big, ambitious, serious club - not just in what you spend but how you spend.

The harsh reality for Chelsea fans is we need to stop demanding manager is sacked for a week’s worth of bad results or one bad run. Because if we keep on changing managers like we do, I can almost guarantee we will underachieve in terms of the league.

There’s no way we’ll become a “serious” team again unless we as a club and fans have the balls and patience to actually back a manager through a tough period and give him years to build. Otherwise, everyone should just accept being a good cup side who fights for top 4. That’s the harsh reality for fans.

People think Chelsea’s decline began around 2017 after Conte’s title win. No, it began long before that. It was a slow, slow decline, almost not noticeable at first, but decline it was.

Once the great 2004-2012 team began to decline, we were not the same team. We still were a strong top 3-4 team who won win big trophies, including two Champions Leagues, we managed to challenge for the league under elite managers, Carlo, Jose and Conte, with the help of our occasional top signings like Eden Hazard, Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas, N’Golo Kante, Nejmanja Matic, Courtois, Azpi, JT and a few others, and a season with no European football. But we weren’t the all conquering side of 10 years before, we were not challenging for the league or reaching the final stages of the Champions every season. In contrast, between 2003-2010 we challenged for the league 5 years out of 6 and made 4 Champions League semi finals and a final.

It was a slow decline, but a decline it was.

Thomas Tuchel’s only full season at Chelsea, 2021-22, was a microcosm of Chelsea since 2010. A big striker signing which flopped, poor recruitment in the areas of the pitch we needed to get top quality (midfielder and CB), failing to promote a top academy players to give us depth (Tino Livramento), and not renewing contracts for some key players when you had the chance, two of whom left on free transfers.

As a result we didn’t have the quality depth to sustain a title race once midfielders and wing backs got injured. And we ended up in 3rd place, way way off the title winners, and in 4 cup finals, winning 2.

Sadly, we’re not much better now. Our scouting and parts of our recruitment have improved significantly, but we still fail to back the manager in key positions, we still make signings who end up flopping and we have to find a way to get rid of. Our depth is still not good enough and we can put together runs to be in the top 2 but then when injuries or fatigue kick in we struggle, before ending up in 4th.

Oh and we win knockout trophies. Which are great and I really enjoy - all trophies count to me, I always say we should celebrate every trophy (apart from the Community Shield, only Arsenal count that) - but they aren’t the really big ones.

And with £1.6 billion spent in nearly 4 years, we should be demanding more.

I do think now we are less trigger happy than we used to be, Enzo Maresca was backed through a bad patch last season and we had a positive end to the season. Same earlier this season. And even with the disagreements at the top, if Maresca has a successful season there’s a good chance he keeps his job.

The owners stated desire for stability at manager level, and in the structure of the club, is going to be key in us returning to being a title challenging squad. We HAVE to stick by a manager for 3-5 years and let him build if we want to win leagues again.

Personally, I’m not satisfied with being a good knockout team. Including the Champions League. The great teams dominate the domestic league. Chelsea SHOULD be challenging for the league consistently. When you do that, you tend to have a good chance of dominating in Europe too.

Many people including me, and even ex-players such as the likes of Frank Lampard are on record about this too, believe firmly that had Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti been allowed more time at Chelsea, we’d now have more than 5 Premier League titles. Roman Abramovich’s hire and fire policy actually hindered our success. We had a LOT of success under Roman’s ownership, and we’re all grateful for it, but it really could have been a lot more.

The conclusions we can draw here are very simple.

• Success is not about HOW MUCH you spend, but HOW you spend it.

• You can only achieve PL dominance with stability at manager level, and being patient through tough periods.

• We’re further away from our last period of league dominance than we thought we were.

This is a sobering reality.

There is SO much work to do to get back to being a serious, elite side. Mentality, quality, time, good spending, all needed. That includes us, we have to be patient, we can’t keep turfing out managers every 18 months or bad run of form, we have to stick by them.

And we have to realise just the level that is needed to dominate the PL, because we still have a long journey ahead of us before we get there again. It is possible, but it will require patience, giving a manager time and backing, and much better recruitment/squad building, to get us back to where we should be.

The Score