New Year, new thinking, old problem

Picture: Sky Sports

So I start 2023 with a post about football. Sorry if you were expecting something erudite about rock and roll, but there’s plenty of that in the pipeline, I assure you. It’s just that things need to be said about my football club. And being a Monday, home of the occasional ‘Monday Moan’ (see posts passim), it might as well be now, even if today is only the second day of the new year.

There was hope that the World Cup, which ate through most of the final six weeks of the old year, would allow Graham Potter time to figure out what wasn’t happening at Chelsea. Prior to last Tuesday’s restorative 2-0 win over Bournemouth, the club had suffered three straight defeats in its previous Premier League outings, running up to the tournament in Qatar. Potter had said that he would use the international break to get his head around why. In fairness, it was probably the first opportunity he’d had to fully get under the skin of the team he’d been somewhat parachuted into following Thomas Tuchel’s abrupt sacking in September, barely a month into the new season. That meant Potter had a steep curve to attain, even if it was softened by conciliatory noises from Chelsea’s new owners about a “project” that would give him time. 

The Bournemouth result, which saw goals from Kai Havertz and Mason Mount, with Raheem Sterling displaying a contributory form that he’d barely shown since his summer move from Manchester City, gave some hope that Potter’s pledge before the game, that improvement was coming, would ring true. “We’ve had a challenging time, some ups, some downs, in terms of the previous year which is normal at any football club,” the head coach said during his pre-match comments. “But we want to stabilise, try and improve and make our supporters happy, because we know the last few weeks before the break weren’t nice for us. Results suffered, performances weren’t where we wanted them to be, and we have to do better than that.”

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

The one negative in the Bournemouth result was the withdrawal of Reece James having put in a half during which he’d demonstrated, cruelly, what Chelsea had been missing during his absence due to a knee injury. When that injury occurred again, right in front of the dugout, a collective groan extended around Stamford Bridge. That was just how much difference James had made. If, then, you add his left-sided wingback counterpart Ben Chilwell to the injury list, a picture emerges of why Chelsea have looked pedestrian without the pair, marauding forward to cut in, or providing flank protection to a central defensive trio that includes the 38-year-old Thiago Silva. It’s worth noting that since the start of last season Chelsea have won 82% of the games James and Chilwell have started together, and lost just once. Given that both players have been injured for varying periods of that record, you have to wonder what could have been with them fully intact.

So, move on a few days to yesterday’s New Year’s Day visit to second-from-bottom Nottingham Forest, whose manager Steve Cooper knew exactly where to exploit weakness. The resulting 1-1 scoreline flattered Chelsea with, perhaps, the one bright spot being Raheem Sterling’s long overdue sixth goal out of 17 appearances. Full credit, then, to Cooper for inspiring his side into not lying down. But questions must be asked as to why Potter was unable to eek another three points out of a squad in which the club’s new owners invested an additional £270 million last summer. Word is there’s even more expenditure to come. Money, as we all know, doesn’t necessarily solve problems. 

“I think Potter needs time,” was the conclusion of Graeme Souness after the Forest game. “This is not a squad equipped to go and win big games of football. Their goal difference is plus-two.”. Which raises the obvious question: if not, what does £270 million buy you, then? Not a lot, it would seem. None of Chelsea’s summer purchases have exactly set the world alight.

What is emerging are doubts about co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali’s buying strategy, which has appeared more urgent largesse than tactical solution finding. £170 million of that spend went on defenders. By any measure of expectation, Kalidou Koulibaly (a £33 million buy from Napoli), Marc Cucurella (£56 million from Brighton) and Wesley Fofana (almost £70 million from Leicester - and has only made six appearances due to injury), should have made some difference. But, it would seem, no. Koulibaly was meant to resolve the departures of Antonio Rüdiger and Andreas Christensen, both of whose contracts had run down amid dissatisfaction with successive managers, and then exploited the vacuum caused by Roman Abramovich’s forced disposal of the club.

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

Against Forest, Chelsea were exposed at the back. Playing a four, with Koulibaly and Silva flanked by club captain César Azpilicueta and Cucurella, Chelsea looked leaden through the middle, with Jorginho labouring despite loanee Denis Zakaria putting in a decent shift. As wingbacks, Azpiliqueta and Cucurella are no substitutes for James and Chilwell, either in terms of guile or agility. Which means more is expected from the midfield. But here questions must be asked about Jorginho’s viability. In turn, the forward line of Pulisic, Havertz and Sterling look somewhat anaemic, with the American blowing hot and cold (frustratingly, he was outstanding for the USA in Qatar) and the German still unsure of whether he is a false 9 or an actual 9. Hakim Zyech doesn’t seem to have Potter’s confidence as a starting option, despite an outstanding appearance for Morocco at the World Cup. That seemed to merely confirm that he wanted to remain in the shop window, because God knows he hasn’t appeared to be interested in playing for his club when he’s been given the chance.

What this all ladders up to is that Chelsea are, after all that outlay, lacking from front to back. Even if you factor in a lengthening injury list that includes N’Golo Kanté (who surely must be reaching the end of his contract and usefulness, anyway, given that he spends more time on the treatment table these days than a football pitch), the project must surely be about a wholesale blood transfusion rather than more purchases which essentially paper over cracks that have existed in the plasterwork for a long time. 

As one Twitter wag noted yesterday after the draw with Forest, Chelsea have burned through Antonio Conte, Maurizio Sarri, club legend Frank Lampard and Tuchel as managers in the last six years, but some of the same players that engendered their sacking are still on the books. A harsh assessment maybe, but it is perhaps why the appointment of RB Leipzig’s Christopher Vivell as technical director could be the most important signing of the Boehly era (replacing the American chairman himself who’d been fulfilling the role ad-interim). 

Maybe that will stem the apparently naive acquisitions of players like striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, bought in an act of transfer deadline day desperation, presumably in the belief that he could reconnect with former Borussia Dortmund manager Tuchel, only for the coach to be fired five days later. In fairness, Chelsea have been staffing up behind the scenes under the new ownership, especially within its much-vaunted academy, but the attention - and expectation - will always fall on the first team.

And so, we enter another January window. Received wisdom is that player signings at this time of year smack of shotgun wedding, and often end in disappointment (case in point: Fernando Torres). So far, the club has brought in 20-year-old Ivorian striker David Datro Fofana to cover for Armando Broca’s long-term injury, and central defender Benoît Badiashile has joined from Monaco for around £32 million. As is now the custom, Chelsea are being linked with just about every other player who performed with distinction at the World Cup in the belief that the Boehly-Clearlake chequebook contains endless blank pages.

This does bring the spotlight back to Graham Potter. Whether he gets time remains to be seen, but compared to his predecessors, the threat of a P45 isn’t as immediate under the new owners as they had been under Abramovich. But even that doesn’t insulate him. Potter’s challenge - which he hitherto hasn’t encountered in his managerial career - is to turn a squad that still contains Champions League-winning players from only May 2021 back into Top Four competitors. Which on yesterday’s evidence and today’s view of the Premier League table, in which Chelsea sit eighth, seems unlikely.

The impending period will, though, pile on the pressure. Potter’s next two games are against Manchester City - the first, at home in the league, the second, three days later, at the Etihad in the FA Cup. There’s little respite beyond that, either, with a trip down the Fulham Road to upbeat neighbours at Craven Cottage, before returning to Stamford Bridge for Crystal Palace, and then back on the road to Anfield, all before the January window shuts. No wonder fans are anxious. Some have become openly hostile to Potter, though these tend to be keyboard gobshites offering little more than Mauricio Pochettino’s name as an alternative, and who patently haven’t read the situation that the Chelsea coach found himself in when he drove up the A23 from Brighton to his new job in September.

Fresh blood might help - sorry, fresh blood should help - but the bottom line is that Chelsea have too many players who are, to varying degrees, underperforming in seemingly untouchable positions. Some might be doing so because of the players around them, while with others it’s because they simply lack the winning mentality required at the club. 

It’s often said that Chelsea have never been as good as the team that won trophies repeatedly under José Mourinho with a spine of serial winners - and leaders - that ran from goal (Petr Čech), through central defence (John Terry), central midfield (Lampard) to the front (Didier Drogba). The club has, of course, won silverware since that quartet’s retirements, but in its current line-up, it’s hard to identify where the strengths are. Capabilities are there, no doubt, and I’m certainly not suggesting that Chelsea are currently a collection of individuals. But there’s something patently missing.

It doesn’t need to be found immediately, though. A period of purdah from open-top buses might allow the club to re-establish the imperiousness of the early Abramovich era, and the success that had eluded it in the preceding 34 years. The trouble is, success is a very demanding mistress. And a lucrative one, too. Which might tip the weight of expectation on Graham Potter’s shoulders against him in the months ahead.