New horizons, and all that

© Simon Poulter 2022

So that’s it until August. Bar two European finals and the domestic play-offs, club football is on a break. Hard to say, with immediate hindsight, what sort of a season it’s been. Clearly, the Premier League has been about the galactic battle between champions Manchester City and Liverpool, which ended so incredibly dramatically on Sunday. I, by the way, was in my usual seat at Stamford Bridge where, bored by the moribund dead rubber being played out before us, the crowd became visibly more animated as news filtered through of City clawing one back against Villa, prompting most of the crowd to have their phones out for the remainder of the afternoon, as the 2021-22 Premier League title swung towards Manchester.

Chelsea will want to draw a line under this season and move on. Touted as genuine title contenders in August, and bolstered by the “missing piece of the jigsaw” in the £97.5 million acquisition of striker Romelu Lukaku, the campaign fizzled out as residual bouts of Covid, injuries and then sanctions imposed on Roman Abramovich following Russia’s abhorrent invasion of Ukraine conspired to reduce any sense of competitiveness for the reigning European champions in their home league. While it can be somewhat understandable that Chelsea’s players were unnerved by the corporate uncertainty surrounding the club in the final two months, sympathy only goes so far. I’ve been at companies undergoing M&A upheaval and it’s not nice, not knowing whether you’d have a job at the end of it. I, however, wasn’t a handsomely-rewarded football player, with an agent capable of simply extracting me to a new job seemingly at will.

In fact, these last couple of months at Chelsea, with the team just limping over the finish line in third place (yeah, I know, tell “third place” to Watford, Burnley and Norwich….), have shown up some of the inadequacies that Thomas Tuchel must address this summer, now that the uncertainty of the club’s ownership is being resolved, and the Todd Boehly-fronted £4.25 billion takeover has been cleared to proceed. Reports today suggest that the new owners will immediately provide £200 million of the £1.75 billion committed to club development to war chest a squad refresh. That in itself might sound greedy, seeing as it was only 12 months ago this week that Chelsea beat City to win the Champions League in Porto, but the indifferent performances of a tired and, in several cases, disinterested squad since April have underlined the need for Tuchel to address inconsistencies if he is to close the gap on Liverpool and City, which stretched to an 18-point distance between third and second place at season’s end.

First priority is the defence. With Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen leaving for Spain, and doubts remaining about captain César Azpiliqueta (not a vintage season for him in the final to be honest) and Marcos Alonso (the doubts in his case being that he simply can’t defend), Tuchel is going to have to rebuild from the back, as he did when taking over from Frank Lampard in January last year. But it doesn’t stop there: the once mercurial N’Golo Kante has easily lost a yard of his once legendary pace, and Jorginho is nowhere near as imperious in central midfield as he once was. In attack, Christian Pulisic needs to grow a pair and Hakim Ziyech needs to be more consistent every time he straps on his boots. And as for Lukaku…

Picture: Chelsea FC

There have been few shining bright spots in the Chelsea side I’ve seen this term: Mason Mount is the standout exception, and he was deservedly named Player Of The Season after last Sunday’s game against Watford. Reece James must have come a close second, despite being out for a long time, but his work rate and tenacity since coming back has regularly outshone many of his teammates. Oh, how Chelsea have missed James and Ben Chilwell marauding the flanks this term (what a welcome relief it was to see the left wing back make a brief cameo on Sunday).

Mount and James are, famously, products of Chelsea’s Academy, which gives some hope for the future that its long record of talented product can keep on delivering. Certainly, its output, and canny sales of players like Tammy Abraham to Roma, have partially offset some of the more expensive acquisitions like Lukaku, but the big question now is how far will £200 million go in refreshing the squad, and will Tuchel have time to bed in new players?

There is a sense that, despite last season’s European triumph, and even their appearance this season in both major domestic Wembley finals, the club’s lack of a Premier League title since 2017 is telling. Many hark back to the squad that won the Champions League in Munich in 2012, with that spine of Lampard, John Terry, Didier Drogba and Petr Čech which, while then coached by Roberto Di Matteo, had been largely formed by Jose Mourinho with Roman Abramovich’s money. There was a mental resilience about that generation that seems to have petered off in subsequent seasons. As much as it should be a source of pride that they’ve taken the current Liverpool to penalties in those two finals, the helicopter view is less favourable: Chelsea’s FA Cup Final defeat the other week was their third in a row, having been beaten in the showpiece in four of their last five appearances. Throw in the league performances - two fourth place finishes, a third and a fifth place since they actually won the Premier League in 2017 - and the hyper-critical might conclude that Chelsea lack the right stuff. However, Tuchel and even Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp have said that Chelsea have simply been unlucky, and that wouldn’t be an unreasonable appraisal of their fortunes over the last campaign.

They’ve also had to contend with a gruelling programme - a total of 63 competitive games, including the World Club Cup (which they won - their only silverware this season). Perhaps, then, the challenge for Tuchel’s new bosses is that he needs a stronger squad - not just in terms of numbers - but with greater competition for places. Easy to say that, I know: the Alex Ferguson mantra of ‘two quality players for every position’ is fine, until you start having to deal with uppity millionaires not getting games. And you could say that even when Lukaku is the only orthodox centre forward at Tuchel’s disposal, he still hasn’t responded to the opportunity, which in turn has led to his own dissatisfaction and players around him reluctant to pass to him. Kai Havertz has yet to win over fans, too, as the next great goal hope. Like his countryman Timo Werner, despite a brief renaissance, both Germans have toiled in front of goal, despite there being a lot of encouragement from the home crowd.

All of which points to pressure on Tuchel, but also on the club’s new owners. Now all regulatory hurdles have been completed the money people must move fast to close the Boehly/Clearlake takeover to ensure that Chelsea can formally register for next season’s Premier League and Champions League before their respective deadlines next week. On top of that, the UK government licence that has restricted the club’s ability to do any business since March means that their pre-season dealings will be starting relatively late. 

Transfer plans and contract renewals were put on hold by the sanctions, meaning that even the likes of Mount and James have yet to be tied down to must-sign new deals. “I cannot go on holiday, it’s impossible,” Tuchel told the club’s website. “There are too many things to clarify and have an opinion on. It’s not necessary to do everything in person but the first days [of the close season] I will be here anyway and around because my children are in school so the holidays will start with a bit of a delay.” Clearly, the resolution of the club’s ownership will come as a relief: “You could feel it over a long period of time,” Tuchel said. “We managed to put it aside and keep the focus but the longer it got after the international break, it had an impact on us and it still has. Let’s see when we will finally have the chance to act and make up because the disadvantage in terms of timing for the rebuild is big and we have to be fast and smart.”

© Simon Poulter 2022

Ahead of the Watford game, Tuchel told reporters that Chelsea need to “over-perform” next season if they are to close the gap with City and Liverpool and goals - both scoring them and preventing them being scored - will be his priority. “If we stick to [this] group then we will try to solve it with these players," the German said. “We need to produce more numbers because the numbers from our offensive players don't allow us to over-perform," he added. “I’m not pointing fingers, but we need over-performance from everybody and it's not over-performance if we have only single figures in scoring and assisting.” Notably, only Mason Mount ended the season with a double-figure goal tally.

“Is it necessary to bring more offensive players around the box to create more distractions, to create more space for each other? We will ask that question,” Tuchel said. “We are late because other clubs can take players. We have to be fast and smart as soon as the sanctions are lifted. There's a lot of work to do.”

Inevitably, the sports press is already slavering over where Tuchel might spend that £200 million, with Sevilla’s Jules Kounde, a target last summer, Leipzig’s Josko Gvardiol and Villarreal’s Pau Torres already emerging as names of interest. Even Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling is being whispered of, due to his exhaustive and unresolved contract saga, and the Wembley-born forward might prefer a return to the capital. Robert Lewandowsky has even been mentioned. Chelsea have, though, been there before in buying star players on the wrong side of 30. Under Lampard there was an emphasis on youth (hence the emergence of Mount and James, and to their chagrin, the marginalisation of Rüdiger and Alonso). Under Abramovich, the club even imposed a policy of giving over-30 players only one-season contract extensions, a reason for the uncertainty about Azpiliqueta’s future. That said, having discarded John Terry at the age of 36, Thiago Silva will be 38 in September and, frankly, can still put in a decent shift in the heart of defence.

Whoever comes in on the player front (and who goes), the pivotal figure at Chelsea will remain Tuchel. He has arguably been the club’s North Star this season: when the Ukraine/Abramovich saga unfolded he was the only club figure to face the public. As the ownership is finally resolved, Tuchel can satisfy himself that, on balance, he has kept things afloat when they could have gone seriously awry. Moreover, he is arguably the first head coach to outlast Abramovich. He has been, frankly, brilliant, though not always perfect. 

“It will be a super tough race,” Tuchel says of the season to come. ”Manchester United will be in the race, Tottenham will be in the race with Antonio Conte for sure, and we want to stay in the race. Liverpool and Man City do everything to even make their squads bigger and they set the standard so high. This is the challenge in which we compete.” With the right backing, and the right patience, Chelsea should come out of the traps in August with a new hope, hope that at one point a couple of  months ago, seemed at risk of being dashed existentially.