Chelsea at a Crossroads

Now that the World Cup in Qatar is over, and we’ve all caught our breath from that exhilarating final of Mbappe vs Messi, we return to the rigors of domestic football and see what the remainder of the season holds for the Premier League clubs with Chelsea’s future looking uncertain. Chelsea had unprecedented success with Roman Abramovich winning everything with the revolving door of managers where we averaged a trophy a year. From 2003 to 2022 Chelsea won 18 major trophies – the UEFA Champions League twice, the UEFA Europa League twice, the UEFA Supercup twice, the Premier League five times, the FA Cup five times and the League Cup three times.

Although the investment in the players subsided coupled with Chelsea being given a transfer ban after 150 rule breaches involving 69 academy players over several seasons, another vision was promised to the fans of bleeding youth players in with a legend in Frank Lampard as manager. We saw a more sustainable model introduced with free-flowing football and young players that ‘cared’ about the club back. However, this was undone with the purchases of big-name signings that ‘had’ to play and the sacking of a legend. Lampard had his first difficult spell and it felt like the plan was totally undone. Abramovich and the board were chasing what was to be one last hurrah in hiring a proven manager as Thomas Tuchel came in. It felt like a dagger to the heart of Chelsea fans and that the hire and fire model was back yet in true Chelsea fashion the season ended with us winning the Champions League and all seemed rosy again. But in fact, Tuchel’s victory papered over serious cracks that were present three managers prior that were never addressed. With the war in Ukraine forcing the UK government to sanction all British based oligarchs, Roman Abramovic’s tenure as Chelsea owner came to an end and Todd Boehly purchased Chelsea as part of a consortium. They originally kept Tuchel in charge till the end of last season however having spent heavily in the summer on a mix of proven names as well as younger players for the future they felt that Tuchel wasn't buying into the model they were putting in place and didn’t want to be a manager but more a head coach with more of a focus on coaching than transfers. Therefore, in September 2022 Tuchel was sacked and Chelsea hired Graham Potter on five year deal. What is left to be seen is whether this new ownership structure that has promised stability and sustainability will ever come to fruition or if it’s similar false dawn that we saw under Lampard.

Todd Boehly has put structures in place with the notable promotion of Neil Bath who was Chelsea’s Head of Youth Development since 2011 with his role expanding taking on some first-team duties as well with a promotion to Director of Football Development and Operations we can see this idea of a pathway from Cobham to Stamford Bridge much clearer. Coupled with the summer signings of excellent youth players such as Carney Chukwuemeka, Omari Hutchinson and Cesare Casadei shows a real vision for the future.

During the world cup break Chelsea also used this time to promoting Lewis Hall to being a full time first team player. This whole idea is called vision 2030, however the biggest problem is the difficulty in syncing the medium to long term vision whilst also ensuring the short term aims do not suffer and some sense of success can still be delivered to a fan base that is used to averaging a trophy each season. The main short term issue is we have a striker who can't score, we have an ageing midfield, and we have two keepers who both have had torrid periods with Kepa officially being named the worst in the league a few seasons back and Mendy having a real difficult period this whole calendar year. Our most creative outlets are our wingbacks and yet both Chilwell and James both have had two serious injuries this season and Mason Mount hasn’t been his creative best this season.

Graham Potters appointment in September comes with a potential eagerness to see the implementation of a style of play coined "Potterball." This involves as he described “playing in an attacking way, a balanced way, and players have to feel free to make decisions and express themselves”. He has been known to constantly change formations within the game with a flexible approach with players learning multiple positions and giving the opposition a sense of confusion with a real focus on pockets of space disrupting opponents shape and positioning. I am a firm believer that Graham Potter and "Potterball" will bring success to Chelsea if given time but it remains to be seen whether the fans and board will be patient enough to see this idea through. The reason why this will bring success is because his work with Brighton showed he was able to beat traditionally bigger teams with these flexible patterns of play and so the idea is that with ‘better’ players could be even more exciting that the football shown by Potter’s Brighton. If we were to use Arsenal as the framework, they stuck by Mikel Arteta when all seemed lost and are now reaping the rewards with a title challenge. It will be very hard to see Chelsea finishing top four with this current squad. The need for a striker has been further highlighted by Broja having a long-term injury with him unlikely to return before the end of the season however the viable options in January don't fill me with confidence. The threat of Boehly going back in for Ronaldo will undermine all future planning and reduce the chance of Potterball being successful. We are heavily linked with Christopher Nkunku but its looking like he is coming in the summer instead and so a more realistic option would be Youssofa Moukoko as his contract expires in the summer, though trusting an 18 year old to be the focal point without a pre season might be a tall order. The midfield also needs a big refresh but signing a first team midfielder that could make a difference in January is highly unlikely. This is more likely to happen in the summer, cue rumors of Declan Rice coming back home to Chelsea. All this points to an unsuccessful season for Chelsea but can the building blocks be seen as a step in the right direction to vision 2030 to sell to a constantly bickering fanbase?

Chelsea are already out of the League cup having lost to Manchester City and playing them again in the FA Cup makes the chances of progressing in that highly improbable. The Champions League draw has been somewhat favorable with Dortmund being difficult but a game that Chelsea should be winning however the Premier League is the major worry. Chelsea are winless in the last four in all competitions and haven't won in the last 5 premier league games. Morale and form was low before the World Cup break with the last victory coming on 16th October against Aston Villa. Subsequently, Villa beat Chelsea in a warm up game in Dubai at the start of December, although a large chunk of Chelsea first team players were playing in Qatar.

A strong performance against Bournemouth has increased confidence slightly with Mason Mount being back to his creative best. Mount's long range curling effort in his 150th game for Chelsea along with a great move to create the opening for Havertz allowed Chelsea to breathe a sigh of relief that more ground wasn’t lost on the competitors. With the majority of the squad back at Cobham training, you'd hope Potter has started to work his magic. Having time to work with the squad should bring back the confidence that was evident during his first few games although his constant changing of personnel and tactics is both a gift and curse, looks great when it works but makes for nervous watching when it doesn't go well. Only time will tell if Potter and Chelsea are a good match but time is sometimes a rare commodity at Stamford Bridge.