As people should know by now, I’m a long time advocate for the idea that stability at manager level is the only way to achieve sustainable success at Premier League and Champions League level in the modern day. I’ve felt this for a while and the list of examples is becoming long.
Jurgen Klopp, who finished 8th in his first year at Liverpool. Whose teams couldn’t defend for a long time. But given time and backed with top class players, then delivered 5 years where they won the title with 98 points, finished a close 2nd to Pep’s City twice, won a Champions League, SuperCup, Club World Cup and three domestic cups.
Pep Guardiola’s first season at City had them leaking goals all over the place, losing games they shouldn’t lose, and only just making the top 4 on the last day of the season. He was labelled “Fraudiola” and mocked by many fans and criticised in the media. They backed him, gave him time, and he then delivered 20 trophies in the next 9 seasons, a treble and 4 PL titles in a row amongst it.
Finally, as much as I hate to say it, Mikel Arteta now belongs in these ranks. He finished 8th and 5th in his first two full seasons in charge and oversaw Arsenal’s worst run of form for decades. People had them down as in danger of relegation at one point. But they backed him, let him build the club and the squad in his image, and now Arsenal are the best team in the country, already looking likely to win back to back titles, and have got to a Champions League final.
The quick fix, hire a manager, give them a ton of money and they instantly win, which is how Chelsea historically won titles, literally never happens in the Premier League anymore. There’s no exception to this. Chelsea can’t find a way around it. With the Premier League more competitive than ever and lots of clubs having money, you need time and good recruitment, to build a squad, a culture and a mentality, and for a team to learn a way of playing and become confident in it.
I’ve been saying this for years, and yet still some Chelsea fans act like if we spend some money we should instantly be challenging for the league. We have a good summer under a new manager, a decent pre-season and suddenly everyone’s talking about winning the league. Then one setback and suddenly it’s a disaster again.
Maybe some people still think the old Chelsea winning culture is just there and we can just turn that on again with some good recruitment and a good manager. But we don’t and we can’t. That era is over. Chelsea can return to that level of success, but it will have to be achieved differently now.
We still have a lot of young players, and that mentality, culture, character and mindset has to be developed and built, and that takes time. It took Mikel Arteta about 2-3 years to build at Arsenal, and Klopp at least 2-3 years at Liverpool. Xabi Alonso is a winner, and he’s already shown how ruthless he is at Chelsea by ditching Robert Sanchez, getting him out of the club and replacing him, without a second thought or any sentiment. He’s brought in leaders, winners, with experience, people to reset the culture and build that mental toughness and winning mentality.
However, it’s not going to be transformed overnight. Building that mentality, culture and character in the squad takes time. I think it could even be two seasons before we can actually win the league. We should be able to challenge for it next season, go till March or April in the race, and get close and finish 2nd - but I don’t think we will win it this or next year.
In hindsight, those seasons finishing 2nd for Liverpool and Arsenal actually helped them become champions - coming close in the league actually gave their players more fire to go out and finally win it. By the time they got to their title winning year, they were ready mentally, tactically and in terms of maturity and experience.
It also helps if you can win knockout competitions along the way, as Jurgen Klopp did at Liverpool - and his first knockout competition happened to be the Champions League. Winning trophies of any kind builds a culture and habit of winning trophies. I think this is why Xabi Alonso played a strong team in the league cup against Luton and may do against Leeds, and hopefully future rounds. He knows the importance of winning that first trophy as a group and building a habit of winning trophies.
Frankly, I think we’re well capable of winning domestic knockout trophies now, and doing that will help in taking a step forward in our mentality, and becoming a serious outfit who are able to at least compete with the likes of Arsenal, even if we don’t beat them or finish above them this year. Its time we get taken seriously as a competitive outfit, rather than the joke also rans we’ve been for a few years.
My bigger point though, is it all takes time to achieve.
We’ve had some average or poor managers where time has been demanded but aren’t of the right calibre to deliver success. Xabi Alonso is different, he’s a truly elite manager, a proven winner who’s delivered and has a track record of success. He’s the one you give time to, and he’s already had a huge impact in my view.
The problem is even now, if we don’t play well or lose a game or two, some fans act like the world is ending. They say it’s all over, we’re finished, we should question everything and dump the tactics, the coach or the players and start over again.
I can tell you now, if we adopt that approach as a club, we won’t win the PL ever again. Ever. In fact with that approach, we may not even challenge for the title again.
Given the money spent over the last four years we should be there by now, but in reality we aren’t. The old project was basically dumped in the summer and we started over. We signed PL proven players, as well as leaders, experienced players, culture setters and winners, like Jordan Henderson for example, and kept the best of what we already had. We improved, in my view, in three out of the four areas of the pitch. We finally appointed a proven elite coach, a winner, and backed him in the market.
We’re four games into this and I see a few people are having doubts and thinking Xabi isn’t up to it. I mean it’s so exhausting as it happens all the time. It’s like we’ve learned nothing from our failures and others successes. Our two worst seasons in decades, we had 3 managers. I heard everyone last season saying we can’t do this again, we can’t go through 3 managers a season. That means actually having patience when you get an elite manager and letting them build, through the teething problems, through the bumps in the road (as long we don’t have another disastrous collapse like last season). We should allow Xabi Alonso to rebuild this squad, which clearly isn’t finished yet but hopefully will be soon, and ultimately, rebuild the club.
Constantly changing managers when you’re not playing well or lose a couple of games isn’t the answer. It’s certainly not the answer when you have a coach who won a league dominated by Bayern Munich for a decade, not to mention doing it unbeaten, with a squad that wasn’t the best in the league, and only lost one game in all competitions all season (a European final).
One thing people have said with the Klopp or Arteta comparisons in recent years is “well XYZ is not an elite coach” - well Xabi Alonso IS an elite coach and has the track record to prove it. He has a 63% win percentage over his managerial career - higher than any Chelsea manager since Thomas Tuchel. He’s been a manager around 3 seasons in all and won a league title, a domestic cup, got to a European final and finished runner up in the Bundesliga. He was 2nd in La Liga when he left Real Madrid, where he had a 73% win percentage (much higher than his successor, Álvaro Arbeloa, now at Fulham).
This is a manager who in my view, has earned the right to backing and time through his achievements. If the same old group of Chelsea fans on twitter - generally not those who read this site, to be honest, the community here is pretty smart, patient and rational - end up forcing him out too, they probably deserve another Liam Rosenior.
Fans can’t keep demanding instant success and perfect performances every game from day one, regardless of the spend. We actually have to just give an elite manager time and sit through the discomfort and the ups and downs. Liverpool and Arsenal fans did, I’m pretty sure the wait was worth it.
This isn’t toxic positivity either. Many of the concerns ARE valid. Fans have a right to have concerns. We have a long way to go as a squad and there’s clear issues which need addressing right now, areas where we really need to improve. Conceding so many goals is frustrating. I’m not denying that. The players and Xabi himself even acknowledged the need to improve and sort the defence in their interviews post game after Arsenal. But demanding we scrap it all and start over, or making final judgements after just 4 games, or even 4 months (as long as it’s not Rosenior levels of bad), is just absurd to me.
Xabi’s not even got the squad he wanted yet. He wanted two midfielders signed, none were signed. The club did try for weeks to get one, but ultimately failed. They have to do better in the next two windows, and sign midfielders of the level to play for Chelsea, not midfielders for their own sake. There’s a strong argument that if even one midfielder had been signed in the summer, we’d have looked a lot more solid as a team and not conceded so many goals, and I tend to agree.
But one big issue is Alonso has not had Moises Caicedo available to him yet. Moises Caicedo is world class and has only missed 10 PL games for us since he joined. Our PL win percentage without him under 5 different managers is 30%. His absence would handicap any manager.
Xabi also said this summer was just “phase one” of the squad building and we’ve had briefings saying the squad is not complete and more investment will come. So the club and the manager know there’s areas we have to improve in terms of the squad, I think they see exactly what we do, and I’m sure they will act as soon as they can. Its simply a non negotiable to get a top midfielder in January AND the summer.
I’m admit I’m exhausted with all the toxic levels of negativity, cynicism and impatience I see every year or with every new manager, or every time we fail to win a game. Its been there for years. I’ve literally seen people seriously advocating for Alonso to be sacked or saying he’ll never win us a trophy already. No joke. Its 4 games in, with no Moises Caicedo, learning a new way of playing and with an incomplete squad. It’s absolutely crazy to say the least. No manager should be under threat after 4 games in charge.
Yes, there’s fair criticisms, no problem with that, but some of the reactions go way too far and it happens so often. To my shame, I’ve even been sucked into it myself in in the past - not recently thankfully - which I’m embarrassed about. But thankfully I generally keep out of it now and block the people who are the real troublemakers.
I won’t lie, at times it’s threatened to ruin my enjoyment of football, especially when we’ve won a game, played pretty well and still these people come out and whine. This isn’t why any of us fell in love with football is it? When we win, we should enjoy a win. When we see progress, we should celebrate it. When a game is enjoyable, then enjoy it. Yes, there’s big challenges ahead of us, and issues to deal with, but I refuse to accept we’ve not made progress since Xabi Alonso came in - and not just on the pitch, but off it - which is just as important.
To finish with a positive, BBC journalist Sami Mobkel reported the other day that Moises Caicedo may actually be back for the Hull game next weekend. Si has reported it may be later than that, but I don’t think its a long term injury as Xabi said its only short-term after Arsenal. So he’ll be back sooner rather than later. There’s no doubt in my mind, when he and Marcos Palestra are back that will improve us defensively by some distance, and give us way more control and solidity in midfield. As I said, Caicedo is world class, and we’re much stronger with him in the side.
The team will undoubtedly improve too as we learn Xabi’s system and he gets more time with the squad, which he will do given we have a lot of weeks without any midweek games. We finally have a manager who’s earned the right through his managerial career to be given time, and so lets give him time, because if we do, that to me is our best chance of being league and European champions again.
The Score
As often is the case when you write these articles, they are well presented, even handed and obviously to most sensible supporters make sense. The overtly negative, shoot from the hip elements of the CFC Community are driving many good people away from these forums and even the game as a whole. It is what is wrong with the Substack chat. Thank you "The Score" for taking the time to prepare and share these thoughtful articles.