Why Chelsea is a mess and who is responsible

It's not the manager, the squad, lack of experience or even the project

Of course after recent results and performances, it’s natural for everyone to be angry and frustrated. It’s simply not been good enough, from everyone. Head coach Enzo Maresca, the players, and those above them. No one escapes responsibility for this absolute mess.

But before we get to the criticisms - and there are many - I want to dismiss what I believe are a few myths which I’ve seen floating around.

First up, I’m not buying into the idea this is a bad squad with bad players. The performances we put in in the last few months of last season disproved that. We played some excellent football, we showed character, we beat some top teams - Liverpool, Benfica, PSG for example - and showed a lot of quality. We won two trophies and had the third best defence in the Premier League last season.

Second, I’m not buying the idea we’re weaker than last season. To me anyway, all the attackers we signed are improvements on those they replaced. Joao Pedro, Liam Delap, Alejandro Garnacho, Estevao Willian and Jamie Gittens are all good players, nearly all with either PL or CL experience. Jorrel Hato gave us cover at LB and did a good job at LCB against Brighton despite the result. Facundo Buonanotte has even looked like a shrewd acquisition on loan.

Third, the idea the project has failed is also not true in my eyes. Its a long term project to achieve sustained success and we’re two years into it (from when the Sporting Directors arrived).

Apart from the two points above, we have the likes of Mike Penders, Aaron Anselmino, Mamadou Sarr, Kendry Paez, Geovany Quenda, Emanuel Emegha and Dastan Satpaev all still to come into this squad. Like it or loathe it, (and I get the loathing of it, and the frustration, I really do), the squad building was planned ahead over a number of summers, which is why in some seasons we’ve had gaps in the squad. I’m not agreeing with it, just stating what I believe is the long term plan.

Its unorthodox and not been done before, hence people are skeptical, especially when we’re losing games. Fans also want instant results, or quicker results, which is understandable. But these are all talented players - not all will make it at Chelsea, but some certainly will and will improve us. The squad could be stronger next season in some key positions without signing anyone new.

Fourth, lack of experience is no longer an excuse for me. Reece James is now 25 and an established player. Enzo Fernandez is nearly 25 and a WC winner, Marc Cucurella is 27 and a Euros winner, Trevoh Chalobah is 25 has been at Chelsea 4 years, and Robert Sanchez is 27. All those players were on the pitch in the last two defeats - and it was two of these experienced players who got sent off. Tosin Adarobioyo is also 28 and another experienced player valued by the squad and the club. We now have experience and leaders in our squad, and they’ve won two trophies together.

Fifth, I don’t believe Enzo Maresca is a bad manager or that he’s failed at Chelsea. He’s put a run of 23 wins in 32 games together since March. He’s beaten Arne Slot and Luis Enrique, two top managers, and orchestrated brilliant victories against PSG, Liverpool and Benfica.

He’s won two trophies, achieved more points in his first year, than our season under Pochettino, qualified for the Champions League, and we had the third best defence in the PL last season. In the last 12 months, the last 38 league games, we’re 3rd in the PL form table, since January 1st we’re 5th, only 3 points off 4th.

Has Maresca made mistakes and bad decisions in recent games? Yes, absolutely, and he deserves his fair share of criticism there. But the idea he’s suddenly a poor coach or a failure, isn’t correct for me.

The idea sacking him and replacing him with someone else is going to fix everything is just not accurate to me. It will be more scapegoating by the Sporting Directors to avoid them taking responsibility, we can’t fall for it. I’ll touch on this later.

None of these things are problem in my view. The problems are different, and there’s two major ones I want to discuss.

First, fatigue. Chelsea played 64 games last season plus internationals. Cole Palmer has played 113 games of football in 24 months, for example. We barely had a rest or pre-season. Players are already playing too many games in football generally and we just exacerbated this. A lot of clubs are getting injuries early in the season because of this. Manchester City have had a stuttering start after the CWC too.

Mental and physical fatigue was always going to be a factor early in the season, and I said so on social media back in the summer during the CWC and before it. This is one reason we’ve had so many injuries too.

There’s only so much you can do to mitigate this, and possibly one thing Maresca needs to do is to adapt tactically so play a lower intensity football for a while to grind out results, and also play players who have less minutes in their legs from last season. Josh Acheampong didn’t play too much football last season, and the likes of Andrey Santos, Romeo Lavia, Buanotte and Jarrol Hato are the same. We’ve got to manage minutes for players so they aren’t overplayed. But this has definitely impacted performances and results this season in my view.

Second, recruitment. I’m getting tired of the total lack of accountability from the Sporting Directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. I’m not calling for them to be sacked, just for some accountability. They seem to take credit for everything good, and never stand up and take any share of responsibility when things are getting tough. They can often scapegoat others, like the manager (already seeing briefings to this effect) rather than stand up and take responsibility.

There was no excuse for not signing Mike Maignan last summer. His experience, leadership, distribution and quality would have improved us, and not blocked Mike Penders pathway. Indeed I’d have been open to selling both our current keepers, signing Miagnan and bringing in Penders as his backup, to play cup games, lesser CL and PL games. Not getting Maignan over the matter of £4-5m is simply not good enough.

The centre-back issue isn’t simple, we needed to sell to buy from last seasons European squad and the two prime candidates, Wesley Fofana and Benoit Badiashile, were injured. But maybe we needed to be more ruthless and sell someone else in order to get a top CB in. Even with Levi back, we’ve not signed one world class CB since the SDs took over in January 2023, and that’s shocking. Wes Fofana was signed before they arrived but has barely had an impact due to injury. Levi Colwill has been superb but has had no elite partner. They have had plenty of windows to get one, and haven’t. That is failure on their part, and there’s no excuse for it, they’ve had well enough time and money to get this resolved.

Having those two positions filled would have made a difference this season, without any doubt, and saved us some points in the last two games. I don’t believe it would suddenly have made us serious title contenders, but it would have ensured we were comfortable in the top 4 and an improved points total.

As I alluded to above, to blame the manager for the issues at the club is, to me, to blame the symptom for the sickness. The Sporting Directors have signed some talented players and built a good scouting and recruitment structure, but they’ve also made some fundamental mistakes and bad decisions, and never been held accountable. They’re happy to take credit for success but never take responsibility for failure. This simply is not how high performance organisational structures work.

I’m not here to demand sackings or get personal or overly emotional. But there has to be accountability at the club, and that goes up to the ownership too. Enzo Maresca deserves a share of the criticism, without any doubt. He’s made mistakes and I don’t like the constant whining in public, it doesn’t help the team. The players also need to do a lot better and cut out these constant elementary errors which cost us points and games.

But the Sporting Directors also have to stand up and take responsibility for their failures, and for not backing the manager properly which has put us in this situation. The SDs can and might scapegoat the manager by sacking him, which will appease some fans, but the smart ones know they bear huge responsibility for this too, and a change of manager won’t cover that up.

There HAS to be accountability higher up at the club. That doesn’t have to mean sackings, but it does mean sorting things out and getting a top CB in in January, and possibly speeding up the Emanuel Emegha signing to January, and if at all possible, not sacking the manager. The Sporting Directors have had enough leeway as it is, they’ve taken all the praise, so they can take the criticism now. They are getting no leeway from me or other fans now, and they need to fix up to save our season.

Fans have every right to be angry and frustrated, and we deserve better from those running our club.

The Score