Falling through an open window

You've got to love the summer transfer window, haven't you? From season's end to season's beginning, three months of rumour and speculation and, occasionally, a transaction. No one - be they football hack or football fan - knows what's really going on, usually until it actually happens. And even then, in the case of Romelu Lukaku's transfer from Everton to Manchester United, the club he was expecting to join - Chelsea - didn't seem to have much of a clue of what was going on, either. Or so we're led to believe.

It is often reported that clubs are considering or even activating wholesale changes, as new managers come in and overhaul their squads. Sometimes it's attritional, at others, a clearout. Which is what makes what's going on at Chelsea more curious. Away from the shock-horror headlines about Lukaku, there appears to be something of a talent drain. Last night Nathaniel Chalobah was sold to Watford for just £5.5 million, a transfer of the player's own volition in the pursuit of more playing time. Likewise Nathan Aké, the superbly versatile 22-year-old sold to Bournemouth. Ditto Dominic Solanke, another highly rated youth product, whose sale to Liverpool is still being finalised due to a difference of opinion between the clubs on his value. Winger Christian Atsu has been sold to Newcastle, while Bertrand Traoré has gone to Lyon. All highly rated young players, players who've either come through Chelsea's youth system, or have been acquired as the next great thing.

The outflow of youth players has also seen more disappearing via Chelsea's now well established loan route: Ruben Loftus-Cheek - one of the few young players to break through under José Mourinho - is now on a season-long spell at Crystal Palace, while Ola Aina finds himself at Hull City for the duration of the next term. Tammy Abraham, who was such a prolific striker last season while on loan to Bristol City, is now at Swansea for the season ahead, albeit with a substantial new five-year contract anchoring him at his parent club. Until he, too, is deemed surplus to requirements, of course.

But still, it's not like Chelsea are awash with strikers, and with Solanke gone and Diego Costa going (a matter of when rather than if), some of the club's fans are getting a little irritated. Chelsea aren't threadbare, though: the current full squad currently totals around 50 players, if first team and 'development' personnel are added together. But the real concern is not warm bodies, but talent, and the nurturing of that talent.

It's long been clear that Chelsea works on a dual strategy of populating its first team with players it has invested heavily in, while its so-called "development squad" acts largely as a husbandry operation. The principle established early on in Roman Abramovich's ownership of Chelsea was that the club's academy should be consistently feeding players to the first team. However, the last academy product to become a fixture was John Terry. Prospects like Josh McEachran, striker Izzie Brown and indeed Loftus-Cheek have all been talked of as having the potential to establish themselves, but nothing has come of it. McEachran is now at Brentford and Loftus-Cheek is at Selhurst Park. Brown remains in the squad, but could be another loanee.

Chelsea's husbandry has drawn praise in some quarters: Marina Granovskaia, described by Chelsea as the "representative of the owner", but also a kind of de facto chief executive, oversees transfer dealings, along with technical director Michael Emenalo. And, it could be said, they've done quite well in generating transfer income so far this summer, with £65.3 million in the kitty from the sales of Aké, Juan Cuadrado, Asmir Begovic, Traore, Solanke and Atsu - all fringe players. In fact, Chelsea have earned in well over £330 million from player sales in the last few seasons, all of which being good for financial fair play, and putting money back Abramovich's way.

Picture: Chelsea FC/Twitter

The issue, however, remains who is coming in, and why. So far the club has only brought in Manchester City keeper Willie Caballero on a free (to replace Begovic) and defender Antonio Rüdiger (above) for £29 million, with Monaco's midfielder Tiemoué Bakayoko expected any moment for £40 million (the latter two being specific requirements for Antonio Conte, which explains his willingness to let Chalobah go for £10 million and consider even letting Kurt Zouma - once seen as John Terry's shoe-in successor in central defence - go out on loan as well).

The most vexed issue of all is clearly what's happening about strikers. There was, in fact, a certain indifference from Chelsea fans over the club's failure to land Lukaku. He'd hardly set the world alight when a Chelsea player previously, and for all his prolific goal-scoring at Everton, didn't exactly put himself high on the list of must-have forwards. But, still, Chelsea are currently looking threadbare up front, with only Michy Batshuayi and the forgotten man Loic Remy as first team options for the centre forward position, when Costa goes. Which means signing Alvaro Morata from Real Madrid or Fernando Llorente from Swansea is now a money-no-object imperative.

With a Premier League title to defend and the Champions League to return to (not to mention the domestic cups), Chelsea have a big season ahead, raising even more questions as to why the club has been prepared to let so many of its brightest rising talents go. I'm sure - as indeed are many fans - tjat the club knows what it is doing, and we should just put our faith in them. In the case of Lukaku, it became clear that the club simply wasn't prepared to pay and inflated agent's fee to secure him, and to some extent, that should be respected. But with pre-season already in progress, a summer tour next week to the Far East and a return to Wembley and Arsenal in just three weeks' time for the Community Shield, we can be forgiven for feeling nervous that another summer transfer window will close with targets missed and some last-minute surprises smirking their way through St. Pancras station on the final evening of trading.

You snooze, you lose?

I know I'm tempting fate posting on the Romelu Lukaku situation this Saturday morning, given that by the end of the weekend the striker could be a signed, sealed and delivered Manchester United player. That's as opposed to the Chelsea player everyone - including Antonio Conte - has spent the better part of the last 12 months assuming he would eventually become again.

The 24-year-old's protracted desire to escape Everton, to whom Chelsea sold him in 2014, has been as tiresome as it has generated eye-watering headlines of his valuation. That Everton allegedly slapped a presumably prohibitive £100 million price on him is as damning a statement of the inflationary state of football as anything else. I suppose you can't really blame Everton, even if he's really worth only a fraction of that amount.

Both United and Chelsea have apparently offered £75 million. This is still an insane amount, but Conte is reported to have instructed his club's dealmakers (principally Marina Granovskaia) to get Lukaku at any cost. However, that doesn't appear to extend to the fee that Lukaku's agent, Mino Raola, would want from any sale (Raola notoriously pocketed a tidy sum for bringing Paul Pogba to Old Trafford, and also represents another United player, Henrikh Mkhitaryan). Advantage United.

Antonio Conte has now, according to The Times, made his peace over Lukaku signing for United, although he's understandably seething that a player he's been openly courting for the better part of a year is being drawn towards José Mourinho's United at the last minute. And it will raise questions about Chelsea's transfer nous. There's no doubt that the club has demonstrated sound acumen when husbanding its resources: the sales of Juan Cuadrado, Asmir Begovic, Christian Atsu, Bertrand Traore and Nathan Ake have brought in £62 million, money which will go towards the impending acquisitions of Tiemoue Bakayoko and Antonio Rudiger, and possibly Alex Sandro. But still.

Long before those three names were on anyone's lips, Lukaku had been a case of 'when' rather than 'if'. At root has been his desire to play in the Champions League and even to prove to Chelsea that José Mourinho was wrong for selling him to begin with. Everton initially didn't want to let him go, and slapped a nonsensical price tag on him as the proverbial sprig of garlic to ward of predatory interest. On top of that, it has been suggested that Chelsea's relationship with Everton has not been great since it spent much of 2015 trying to buy John Stones. Increasing bids from Chelsea were rejected on the basis that Stones was not for sale. Until Manchester City came along with £47 million, of course. Funny that.

Clubs now appear giddy with an inflated pot of television money, and are apparently happy with increasing their spending on individual players by magnitudes of leaps and bounds. There is a precedent for this: when BSkyB bought the first package of Premier League broadcasting rights in 1992, ahead of the league's debut season, it paid £304 million, establishing the model for paying way over the odds to keep all competitors at bay. 26 years on, the last three-year Premier League TV deal checked in at £8.3 billion. Even with Financial Fair Play ensuring that clubs balance the books, things have gone nuts. If Chelsea do, against the odds, manage to bag Lukaku, it should be remembered that the last two strikers they bought - Diego Costa in 2015 and Michy Batshuayi last summer - cost £32 million and £33 million respectively. And in the case of Costa, you could say they've got their money's worth. Would the same be said of Lukaku? I'm not so sure...

Costa Brava? Who knows what he is

Diego Costa/Instagram

What a fickle creature football is. Lose two games on the spin and your team is "in a slump". Win two back-to-back and you're in the form of your life. Back in October, the Wednesday after Chelsea had magnificently taken the scalp of former manager José Mourinho's Manchester United, winning 4-0, they travelled across London to what will always be the Olympic Stadium, where West Ham unceremoniously dumped them out of the EFL Trophy, or whatever pseudo-American name some marketing types have come up with for the old League Cup.

That may have been a blip. In the Premier League, Chelsea were on their way in that remarkable 13-game unbeaten run, one which propelled Diego Costa to the top of the league goal-scoring chart, with 14 goals to date. 

This is the Costa who'd been a part of the previous season's malaise under Mourinho, the fiery Costa whose combustible side was rarely far from the surface, who had appeared to be easily provoked by cynical defenders, but was now showing a more mature, focused nature, channeling his fire into being what football people like to term "a handful" in the box.

Costa's prolific goal scoring this season appeared to coincide with Antonio Conte reporting that his star striker was contented, but also admitted that over the course of the summer the Brazilian had once more questioned life at Chelsea. Conte appeared to have settled him, getting him to knuckle down on what he does best, removing the tendency to be a red card waiting to be shown, and getting arguably the best football out of the Brazilian since he signed for the club. A rumoured bust-up between Costa and Conte after the striker was subbed during the home fixture with Leicester in October was dismissed as 'one of those things' that happens all the time in football. Even the very public disagreement between Costa and Pedro during the post-New Year game with Tottenham that ended the unbeaten run was dismissed by fans and club insiders as merely a sign of how badly the players want to win. So, hunky dory then?

Well, perhaps not. Last night's shock revelation that Costa will not play any part in today's visit to the King Power Stadium appeared amidst a flurry of claims and counter-claims amongst pundits. The story emerged in Italy, with Sky's Italian affiliate claiming that Costa had had a robust exchange of views with one of the club's fitness coaches during training this week, leading to Conte allegedly telling the striker to "go to China". By coincidence, Costa's agent - the omnipresent Jorge Mendes - had been seen in the company of Tianjin Quanjian's billionaire chairman Shu Yuhui, with reports circling that the Chinese Super League club was offering the 28-year-old striker a contract worth a staggering £570,000 a week. More stories emerged claiming that Costa himself had ordered his reps to get him a move to China, following the lucrative deals done with Oscar and John Mikel Obi.

Diego Costa/Instagram

And then Costa confused everybody by posting a rah-rah photograph on Instagram of him and Pedro celebrating scoring against Tottenham with the simple caption "Come on Chelsea!!!", followed by a blue heart. Still, though, this walks in the land of ambiguity: such a footballer's social media post isn't much more sincere than a public display of badge kissing. "Come on Chelsea!!!" could be heard a number of ways: the barely concealed frustration of "Come ON Chelsea!!!", the wearisome "Oh, come on Chelsea...", or the perfunctory "Come on Chelsea!!!" that periodically comes from the stands during a lull in noise. Then there is the question of timing, and whether it had been Costa, at all, who'd posted the picture. Unlike many of his Chelsea teammates, Costa is an infrequent presence on Instagram, but when he has appeared it's obviously been him (earlier in the week he'd posted an oblique video clip of the frozen Cobham training ground first thing in the morning, while over Christmas he'd posted images of him relaxing with friends, possibly back in Brazil). Significantly, Chelsea captain John Terry and teammate Cesc Fàbregas (supplier of many of Costa's goals) were quick to 'like' the post. It's hard to imagine either, especially Terry, would endorse a player badly at odds with the club.

So, back to the fickle nature of football. One minute Costa is throwing bibs at his manager and failing to turn up as a presence, the next he is banging 'em in. One minute he is homesick for Madrid, the next he is fine and settled. And, then, news of a bust-up, rumours of a "lower back problem", his manager telling him where to pursue his career, and the player getting dropped from a key away fixture with the imperative of maintaining or even extending Chelsea's five-point lead at the top.

Whatever the truth, whatever the actual facts, there has clearly been a disturbance in The Force at Stamford Bridge. Perhaps this all a load of nothing, and after Conte - who is not afraid to apply the iron rod if necessary - restores Costa after a token suspension, all will resume as if nothing has happened. Roman Abramovich is said to be insisting that Costa is going nowhere for at least the remaining two years of his contract, but we've seen Costa more or less down tools before. The trouble is, Chelsea lack options: they will probably play Hazard through the middle today, with Willian and Pedro flanking; Michy Batshuayi - who cost more than Costa - has yet to convince the Italian that he is a worthy rival to Costa; and prolific 19-year-old prospects Dominic Solanke and Tammy Abraham are amongst the massed ranked of Chelsea youngsters out on loan. Conte's rumoured interest in Swansea's Fernando Llorente may have just cranked itself up a significant notch.

If, though, Costa's head has been turned by the eye-watering amount of money on offer from China, Chelsea might just have to accept that living by the sword means dying by it. We've had to put up with plenty of "rent boy" trollery since Abramovich's millions transformed the club's fortunes, with generous remuneration being part of the Chelsea operating model. One might argue that the Chinese largesse is merely free market predation at work. There would be no point complaining about Costa's head turning when plenty of Chelsea players have been drawn to the club by much the same methodology.

Perhaps it will just turn out to be a storm in a Costa coffee cup. But I'm not so sure. On this occasion I do think the smoke goes with a fire. Antonio Conte either needs to put it out, or let it burn itself out, and take Costa's contribution to Chelsea's title bid with it. Or he bags himself yet another striker, and hope that the magic the Costa has been applying can be instantly replicated to keep the title push alive.

If you get it wrong you'll get it right next time

Picture: Getty Images

I start the year on a negative note. Now, I accept that after all the merde that passed our way in 2016, commencing 2017 with the triviality of a lost football match doesn't seem all that bad, and truly it isn't. But, like most Chelsea fans, I would sincerely hope, last night's defeat to Spurs will stick in the craw for a long time. Why? Because it simply should. This is Tottenham we're talking about, after all.

Why one team should be considered the one to beat over any other with whom you've had history - and Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United come immediately to mind - is not immediately clear, and is really just a symptom of the irrationality that is football fandom. Every opponent should be the one to beat, which is surely the logical objective of the game. But like Jerry Seinfeld and his postman neighbour Newman, Chelsea fans have a simmering dislike of Tottenham, going back to who-knows-when, and for no reason whatsoever other than Spurs are simply a rival worthy of our dislike.

But let's not get caught up in all that. Tottenham are, so far this season, looking more resilient, more potent and more disciplined than the side that collapsed in the final stages of last season. That contemptuous draw at Stamford Bridge on May 2 marked not only the end of Spurs' serious challenge to Leicester City for the league title, but also the inexplicable moment that Eden Hazard finally switched on the Eden Hazard we once knew, and had been absent without leave since the beginning of the season. Luckily for Chelsea, that Hazard is still with them. 

Just not last night. First off the bat, Chelsea weren't bad. Spurs' 2-0 win may have ended Chelsea's remarkable 13-match unbeaten run, but that may have been almost inevitable. Yes, perhaps if things had gone differently last night, and César Azpilicueta and Victor Moses had not missed their marked man not once but twice and in identical circumstances, the game might have had a different outcome. But let's not ignore the fact that Tottenham were the better composed side last night. Their MO wasn't that dissimilar to the start they made in May and indeed the way they took the lead at Stamford Bridge in November. In Dele Alli, Tottenham have a true gem, and in Wanyama they had a solid object in midfield to disrupt Chelsea's counter-attacking play. And, perhaps, if Diego Costa had been a little sharper, or if Pedro had run into the space that caused the visible ire between him and Costa, or Hazard himself had been more accurate when he had a shooting chance, then Chelsea may have extended the record to 14 unbeaten.

But it wasn't to be. As Gary Cahill, eloquent in his post-match interviews, said, "we are not robots". An important point. In the previous 13 games Chelsea had been imperious, whether winning emphatically over Manchester United and Everton, or grinding out more modest victories over West Brom, Sunderland and Crystal Palace. It became too easy to think that Antonio Conte had simply found the switch to turn this form on after those early season disasters against Liverpool and Arsenal, the latter of which prompting his change to the 3-4-3 formation that unlocked the success that followed.

This morning Chelsea are still top of the league and five points clear. Last night's defeat may have opened things up a little for the chasing pack, but the Premier League is still in Chelsea's hands if they want it. For us fans, we'll deal with wounded pride (which is, frankly, the biggest casualty). Conte's men will want to reflect, as they watch the video replay at Cobham today, on why they were unable to find the gears to really counter Tottenham and repeat that life-affirming reversal in May. Conte himself - a breath of fresh air at Chelsea following the rank negativity of Mourinho - will want to look at whether he put Cesc Fàbregas on too late to make a difference (his link-up play with Costa was evident from the moment he came on) and whether he should have replaced N'Golo Kanté earlier when it was obvious that his passing and positioning had been uncharacteristically off-kilter.

Football, as I've often quoted Danny Baker, "is chaos". There is no logic to it, no rhyme or reason. Chelsea can start a season poorly, then go on a record-seeking run, and then end it with an off night. That's why we love the game, warts and all. No team is infallible, just as there is no such thing as a perfect 10. Sometimes irresistible forces encounter immovable objects, and they tussle until one is the victor. That wasn't exactly the case last night. Chelsea weren't bad, it's just that Tottenham were better. 

The job now for Antonio Conte is to pick his players up. They won't have lost their mojo in a single, tough encounter (though the mystery is still unsolved as to how this same team lost it in the weeks between winning the league and restarting their campaign a season ago) but they will need to think about what didn't go right for them against one of the toughest opponents they will face this season, and build on it. There's the matter of an FA Cup 3rd Round tie against Peterborough on Sunday to think about - and think hard about (their 2015 4th Round exit to Bradford City should still be fresh in their memories...), followed by the resumption of Premier League hostilities that will see Chelsea play Liverpool (away) and Arsenal (home) in the space of five days at the end of this month. And we are only at the half-way stage of the season, anyway. 

Mental discipline and mindset were the reasons Chelsea fared so poorly last season. Antonio Conte has reversed that. There is confidence oozing through the side. Last night was an aberration. This morning, as the players file into the meeting room at the Cobham training ground, my hope is that someone on the staff is a fan of the late Scottish folk-rocker Gerry Rafferty, and as a musical pick-me-up, plays them his 1979 it Get It Right Next Time. Because if you get it wrong...

It's that old Red Devil called José again

I have to admit, I felt some pity for Louis van Gaal on Saturday evening. As he sat before his "friends" of the press, the FA Cup ostentatiously placed in front of him, it was impossible not to feel sympathy towards the Dutchman for not even being allowed his moment for winning the most famous national trophy in the world without being upstaged by José Mourinho, who was on the diametrically opposite side of London, apparently watching a boxing undercard at the O2 Arena.

Without Mourinho even opening his mouth he managed to install himself as the new manager of Manchester United, before the old one had even been told he wasn't anymore. The finger of blame pointed squarely at Mourinho's people, from whom Machiavellian games have been afoot ever since the Portuguese left Chelsea in December. Mourinho was seen to be after the United job from the minute he was fired for a second time by the club. Some even think that he was gunning for the job when he left Madrid, but ended up back in the arms of Chelsea as a consolation prize. With José you wouldn't put anything past him.

Even though I think it best for all concerned for van Gaal to move on, his palpable bitterness on Saturday night was understandable, even if he still can't see why he just hasn't been good enough. But, no matter how bad a season he's had, no matter how badly his relationship with some players has sunk, and no matter how turgidly Manchester United have played at times, van Gaal had, at least, delivered some silverware of merit, and with a side of exciting young players who should do the club well in seasons to come.

This is football's cruel streak laid bare, or at least 'corporate' football. Despite the cup, Van Gaal's Manchester United has, simply, not delivered on expectations. Consecutive seasons outside the Champions League, dry, stifled, defensive football, and single-goal wins that make Mourinho's celebrated pragmatism look quite lary.

The question is, will Mourinho do any better? Will his win-at-any-costs, defend-at-any-costs philosophy deliver any more expansive football than the snoozefests that van Gaal was serving up at the nadir of his tenure? At Chelsea Mourinho got away with it: successive managers have been called on by Roman Abramovich to deliver sexy, free-flowing, high-scoring football. Probably the only one of the Russian's ten coaches to have delivered on this expectation was Carlo Ancelotti, who says in his autobiography that even when Chelsea were winning by telephone number scores he was still getting bollockings from Abramovich. But Mourinho prevailed because, for the most part, he seemed to deliver the success that the club and its fans craved (though never the Champions League, the honour of which went to Roberto Di Matteo).

So, as sales of red-coloured Mourinho scarves start to do brisk businesses on the streets around Old Trafford, the phase "be careful of what you wish for" should be the cautioning guidance to all who have championed his succession to the job at United. Don't get me wrong: Mourinho brought to Chelsea success on a scale I could never have imagined as a teenager as I watched mid-table mediocrity (and relegation) from the cold, exposed terrace of The Shed. I have robustly defended the theatrics and imagined conspiracies, and most of the nonsense that came with Mourinho's time at Chelsea because, well, to be utterly mercenary about it, it won us trophies. It won the very thing that all football fans crave (spare me the 'ever-so-'umble routine of 'pure' fans who claim they're just happy to turn up).

© Simon Poulter 2015

But there is something unhinged about Mourinho, which this season now past brought out into the open, almost from the very beginning. It was the preening, pouting, petulant Mourinho, losing the plot within the first 90 minutes of the season by admonishing Dr. Eva Carneiro and physio Jon Fearn towards the end of that game with Swansea at Stamford Bridge.

We all lose it now and then, and one would hope that most of us would say sorry when we do so without reason. But Mourinho compounded the problem by publicly demoting Carneiro three days later, losing - in my view at least - the dressing room in the process, before the entire house of cards came tumbling down in the ensuing weeks as the 2014-15 Premier League champions slumped ever closer to the relegation zone. There was only one outcome. Yet again, Mourinho departed a club under a cloud in his third season with them.

Manchester United's board will be aware of all this. And the conservatives amongst it who still have a voice will have expressed the view that Mourinho is too much of a liability, too much of a threat to the traditions that, actually, the club upholds to its credit. As much as I loathed Sir Alex Ferguson's overbearing nature, especially towards referees and officials, and the concept of time itself, he produced successful teams over successive seasons by building on the club's traditions.

There is, of course, a lot of Mourinho in that behaviour, but whereas Ferguson maintained it until the last, it vanished for Mourinho, exemplified by Diego Costa's bib-toss at White Hart Lane, just two weeks before the manager was sacked. Van Gaal is said to have lost his players' respect in similar fashion, with stories of United players ignoring their manager's e-mails, not to mention the smartphone antics on the team bus outside Upton Park, which would have been unthinkable under Ferguson. Mind you, it's highly unlikely that the Manchester United bus would have left it so late to leave for an away ground under Ferguson.

There are also more practical concerns to come, should - as expected - United announce Mourinho, possibly tomorrow, as their new manager, with the biggest being United's policy towards youth. It characterised Ferguson's 27-year reign at Manchester United, not the least of which his personal nurturing of the 'Class of '92' - Beckham, Giggs, Scholes, Butt and the Nevilles amongst them.

Given how Mourinho patently didn't trust the raw talent at his disposal at Chelsea - Under 18 and Under 21 players who have now won five out of the last seven UEFA Youth League titles, as well as FA Youth Cups - the powers-that-be at Old Trafford will have their work cut out to ensure that the progress made this season by Marcus Rashford, Jesse Lingard, Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Tim Fosu-Mensah have not been in vain. Questions, too, will be raised over the future of Juan Mata, who Mourinho dispensed with at Chelsea on the grounds that the former two-time club player of the year couldn't adapt to the system he wanted. A penny, now, for the Spaniard's thoughts.

Same goes for Ryan Giggs, given that Mourinho rarely travels alone, and will want to install his own Sopranos-crew of assistants, including Rui Faria, Silvino Louro, José Morais and Carlos Lalin. That said, Mourinho stuck with incumbent coach Steve Holland at Chelsea, and is reportedly considering the same for Giggs for the continuity effect. Giggs may also recognise that appointing José Mourinho is rarely for the long-term, and might choose to bide his time until the inevitable happens and Mourinho moves on - either bored and by his own volition, or because he has, once more, allowed the devil inside to get the better of him, even if it will, by then, be a red devil.

Money and football - it's back to business

Picture: adidas

48 hours ago we were celebrating the closest thing modern professional football has come to altruism - the "fairy tale" (© all newspapers) of Leicester City winning the Barclays Premier League. The common view has been that Leicester, unlike the footballing behemoths they beat to the title, did so on modest funding and a humble team ethic that reflects their genial manager, Claudio Ranieri (best not, though, dwell on events at the end of last season at Leicester and that video...).

We shouldn't too carried away. Leicester don't - and weren't, going into this season - exactly represent a rags-to-riches story. The media may have painted their victory as some sort of David-and-Goliath mismatch, but we're hardly talking about part-time postal workers and milkmen taking on the elite. Certainly the Leicester players will have increased their personal values with this season's unlikely, odds-shattering title win, and no doubt some will progress from millionaire status to multi-millionaires. And that's when the trouble will start.

The Premier League - and the incredible money Sky and other television deals pump into it - has been with us now for 24 years. In that time we have seen the car parks of clubs ostentatiously transformed by the sight of de rigeur Ferraris, Porsches, Range Rovers, Lamborghinis and other symbols of the ridiculous wealth bestowed on young men barely out of school-leaving age. On Instagram we see pictures of their homes, their minor palaces in Oxshott, Weybridge, Wilmslow and Alderley Edge. On social media, commentary of Monday night's party at Jamie Vardy's house has focused as much on the opulent chandelier hanging in his kitchen as the team spirit demonstrated by the Leicester players watching the Chelsea and Tottenham draw.

We are quick to judge: how often have I heard and read people complaining about Chelsea's players this season doing very little to justify the incredible salaries they're paid. But there is justification to it. After all, whether we pay exorbitantly for season tickets (as I do) or we buy the products advertised on the television channels that are paying to show the games, we're paying for all this.

It's a touchy subject. Good, then, of Manchester United's Juan Mata to admit in a Spanish TV intervew that his £150,000-a-week wages are "obscene". Mata is one of the most likeable and intelligent figures in the game. Rather than spending his spare time on the golf course, in card schools or chasing women who are not married to him around nightclubs, he has, since his arrival in England, demonstrated a cultured side to the professional footballer, engaging in his new surroundings and frequently writing eloquently about them on his highly readable weekly blog One Hour Behind. He is also an extremely gifted midfielder - I would still love to see him back at Stamford Bridge - but also one who has been able to burst out of the footballing bubble to view it for what it is.

"With respect to the rest of society, we earn a ridiculous amount," Mata said in the interview with the Spanish programme Salvados. "I'd happily take a pay cut if there was less business involvement in the sport. Football is very well remunerated at this level. It's like we live in a bubble. Compared to the rest of society, we earn a ridiculous amount. It's unfathomable. With regard to the world of football, I earn a normal wage but compared to 99.9 per cent of Spain and the rest of the world, I earn an obscene amount."

Mata said he could sympathise with spectators growing jaded with their clubs, especially if the cost of watching doesn't match the performance delivered by the teams themselves. "I can understand what they're talking about," he told Salvados. "The business side of football makes it seem as though the owners are now more important than the fans. It's not like the football of old; there wasn't as much press coverage before," adding, somewhat tellingly: "or as many interested parties looking for their cut."

"Every player thinks he's Maradona when he joins a big club," Mata went on. "That happens to all of us but then you start to notice it in the younger players. You see kids who think they're rock stars, wearing extravagant clothes and driving fancy cars... and sometimes you have to take them aside and have a word."

Perhaps Mata's wisdom should be imparted to Dominic Solanke, the 18-year-old Chelsea youth team striker who has been on loan this season at Vitesse Arnhem. Solanke has demanded a pay rise to take his earnings from £7,000 per week to £50,000, almost double the average annual salary in the UK - and he's still an Under-21 player yet to break into the first team (much like many of his academy peers at Chelsea).

Understandably, Solanke's demands have been met with outrage. Chelsea, however, may have to consider that they have brought it on themselves, with a reputation for paying high salaries. In the current Chelsea first team, 22-year-old goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois is on £120,000 a week, Cesc Fàbregas is on £156,000, Diego Costa £185,000 and Eden Hazard a whopping £200,000. Even Radamel Falcao is trousering £140,000 a week in his loan deal from Monaco, and no one has seen or heard from him since he came to Stamford Bridge.

According to The Times today, Chelsea are going to stand firm on Solanke's outrageous claim, threatening to demote him to the academy squad unless he adopts a more realistic view of his worth at this stage of his career. The paper claims that Chelsea want to set an example, so that their younger talents don't let money cloud their development as players. It's an admirable approach. Young football players should continue the traditions of apprenticeship, and not simply see their senior peers - some of whom are barely much older - cruising about in exotic cars and expecting to enjoy the same trappings of success so immediately.

We will never escape the vulgarity of money in football. Few fans will have a problem with their favourite players showing off their wealth, as long as they deliver on the investment we all make in them by performing to the best of their ability on the pitch. The clubs, though, have a responsibility. The relationship between them and us fans can only stretch so far.

On top of ticket price hikes, there have been stealthy increases in the subscription costs of the TV companies who cover the games (on top of the advertising revenues that ultimately we pay for). And there are all the other things that make being a football fan a wallet-shredding ordeal: yesterday Chelsea unveiled its new 2016-2017 home kit - not exactly the best design I've ever seen from adidas, coming somewhere between a silk nightie and children's pyjamas, and advertised by a particularly thuggish-looking Diego Costa - for which you could end up paying more than £105 for the full-replica adult shirt with the name of your favourite player on the back. Add another £5 if you also want the official Premier League badge on the sleeve. "Absolute madness. Pure greed," tweeted Stan Collymore.

I may not be an expert on sports clothing but I can hardly imagine that a shirt, no doubt made in a Far East, low-wage country, will have a bill-of-materials that adds up to that sort of money, not even a shirt with adidas' proprietary "Adi Zero" technology, whatever that is. One can only hazard a guess at what the profit margin is on the shirt - even more if you consider that you'd also be advertising Yokohama tyres in the process of wearing it, seeing as they paid Chelsea £200 million to be on the front.

Whether you're a fan, a club or a player, football is an expensive business. And you don't always get out of it what you put in. A matchday ticket in the Premier League this season averages £30.68 (for reference, Chelsea's range from £52-87), with season ticket prices averaging at £513.95 for the cheapest and £886.21 in the more expensive categories (and remember, that's average). We Chelsea fans pay some of the highest season ticket prices in the league: £750 for the cheapest, £1250 for the most expensive. And the 18 - yes, just 18 - home league games our tickets have entitled us to haven't exactly given much joy this term.

Which brings me back to Leicester City. They may be owned by a Thai billionaire, but they have achieved their remarkable success this season with equally remarkable modesty. On August 8, the opening day of the season, the entire Leicester squad represented a total outlay of £45 million.

Compare this with the investments of the teams who'll end the season below Leicester: Raheem Stirling alone cost Manchester City £49 million, out of a total spend of £153.50 million. And all that got them was fourth place in the Premier League and a Champions League semi-final. For comparison,  Manchester United spent £108 million and lie fifth while Chelsea spent £66 million - in defence of the 2015 title - and are currently ninth. Interestingly, Arsenal's spend was just £10 million and they're now third. Tottenham shelled out £66 million, but their net spend was only £5.7 million, and they're second. Make of all that, what you will.

Of course, we all accept - reluctantly - that the money in football will never return to something more sensible. The argument about how much a footballer earns versus how much a nurse earns may have its merits, but it is ultimately a pointless exercise, no more so than trying to work out how Tom Cruise earns $25 million per film. It is clearly nuts that football salaries in countries like Italy and Spain are in complete disproportion to the social struggles and high unemployment these proud and passionate footballing nations are currently struggling with.

We know it's all about market forces. We know that if a Chelsea won't stump up the wages, a Real Madrid or a Juventus will. But it would be nice, for once, for our football clubs to stop taking us fans for a ride, and behaving with a little less greed and a lot more modesty. Then we might start buying those shirts again.

Reality bites for Chelsea - so now its time to fix the problem for good

© Simon Poulter 2016

At some point today, Barry Bright, an ex-estate agent and the former chief executive of both Sittingbourne FC and Gillingham FC, as well as a sitting member of the Kent Police Authority, sat down at his desk at the Football Association and, like Elliott Ness trying bring down Al Capone, looked at every angle that could have Diego Costa's automatic red card ban extended for his generally industrial behaviour against Everton in Saturday's FA Cup quarter-final. 

Because, with the FA concluding that Costa didn't bite Gareth Barry - duh! - there was still a rabid desire by the body's Independent Regulatory Commission to make an example of the Brazilian-born Spaniard. Predictably, the media has already started their braying: "He had intent," they suggest. By that token, looking at the usual expression on the face of an enraged Diego Costa, the span of intent could range from a ritual disemboweling to a nuclear attack. 

So what about: "He made a rude gesture to Everton fans"? Well, he was photographed making a horizontal V-sign, much as most rap stars and, now, all football players do when someone sticks a camera in front of them. It was hardly Harvey Smith.

And then: "He was about to bite Barry, but then decided not to" -- since disproven by Barry himself; Or: "He looked at the referee a bit funny": well who could blame the combustible Costa from not getting a tiny bit peeved with the out-of-his-depth Michael Oliver for the bruising attention his shins had been getting all afternoon from Everton's defenders.

In the end, the inevitable: a charge of improper conduct, for his alleged behaviour "after being shown a second yellow card in the game," according to the FA's official statement. In addition, Costa has been given until Wednesday "to provide his observations" over that "alleged gesture".

So, while Mr Bright and his chums do their best to keep Costa out of sight for what remains of this dismal season for Chelsea, there needs to be a similarly forensic and zealous investigation carried out by the club itself themselves as to why they will end 2015-2016 with nothing to show for it. That's unless, pathetically, they really, truly regard avoiding relegation as a trophy to be proud of.

Because with no more Champions League (perhaps for a long while) and no hope of a Wembley visit this year, Chelsea's season has run totally barren. True, Guus Hiddink has restored confidence and their league form since his arrival has been impressive, but this is still only by comparison to the abject moribundity that they'd allowed themselves to fall into under José Mourinho. Hiddink's salvaging of their league status is big, but put into the wider perspective, it's been one of survival.

And, so, Chelsea can now coast to May 15 when they play Leicester City - perhaps by then Chelsea's successors to the Premier League title - on the final day of the season. What circularity: a season that began on August 8 last year at Stamford Bridge with Mourinho losing the plot over the doctor, ending with Roman Abramovich having to watch Claudio Ranieri - the "dead man walking" he sacked in 2004 - walk through a guard of honour made up of Chelsea's players.

Perhaps it might wake the Russian into accepting how out of shape his club really is. How this club may have acquired an incredible haul of trophies since he took over, but for each of those trophies there is a discarded manager and the perception amongst the rest of the footballing world that Chelsea is a club lacking soul, humanity, class, respect and heritage. Those are all accusations you will hear a hundred times a day on Twitter from the trolls, but even I have to admit they're a tiny bit right.

When I was a child I had no real understanding of why I supported Chelsea. I just did. Liverpool and even Ipswich Town were in the ascendency of the old First Division. Chelsea had a perceived glamour, because they'd been moderately successful in the 60s and early 70s, and bizarrely had picked up a celebrity following that included, yes, Raquel Welch. But after winning the European Cup Winner's Cup in 1971, the next time their trophy cabinet would be opened was to receive the Full Members Cup in 1986, which is about as prestigious as listing a swimming certificate next to your degree.

So, when the away fans taunt us with their "shit club, no history" and "where were you when you were crap" jibes, I pretty much know exactly where I was. Which is why the arrival of Abramovich has been something we've all embraced. Because we have had success. Oodles of it. We've even played some exhilarating football, not just under Mourinho, but also under Ancelotti, Di Matteo, and - dare I say it - Benitez. Avram Grant even took us to a Champions League final. Yes, him.

This season, however, has proven just how tenuous success can be. Champions one minute, relegation candidates the next, while relegation candidates one December become champions-elect the next. Chelsea, have reminded us how, in general,  English teams are mediocre in Europe. Arsenal will soon follow once Barcelona have done the inevitable in their Champions League second leg (and there's a club with a moribundity about it that makes the vibe at Chelsea look quite peppy).

Chelsea will always be my club, just as they always have been. My first visit to Stamford Bridge at the age of 10. There in 1983 when they almost were relegated to the Third Division. There in November 1991 when they were beaten 3-0 at home by Norwich in front of just 15,000, with Dave Beasant culpable for two of those goals. We ended that season, the last before the Premier League began, in 14th place.

Abramovich was supposed to have saved Chelsea from the turmoil of financial collapse, legal disputes and Ken Bates. His spectacular injection of funds was supposed to have bought us the best players and Europe's finest training facilities. Our academy system was supposed to have generated next generations of homegrown. Abramovich's own vision was for Chelsea to become the new Milan, challenging the likes of Bayern and Barcelona for the European cup each season. In fact, he wanted Chelsea to be the new Milan so much that he bought Andrei Schevchenko and eventually persuaded Carlo Ancelotti to become the manager. Although he sacked him the season after the Italian had delivered a league and cup double.

It's when you examine this relentlessly unending dysfunction that you have to admit, reluctantly as a Chelsea fan, that the success and the silverware - while nice to celebrate with open-top bus parades - have been achieved without any long-lasting foundation. 12 managers in 13 years is the sort of track record that we scoff at Newcastle for. We rightly pillory Mike Ashley for the poisonous atmosphere he has instilled on Tyneside, but we ignore the continuing ineptitude behind the scenes at our own club, one in which our Under-18 and Under-21 sides continue to win trophies, but see no progression to the first team. One in which 36 players end up on loan throughout Europe, with only very few of them showing any chances of getting a game for the club they signed for. One in which the answer to one crocked striker is to bring in an even more crocked striker, not play him, and then bring in a more crocked striker and not play him either. And just where are Papy Djilobodji, Marco Amelia, Matt Miazga and Danilo Pantic, transfer deadline signings? Nope, me neither.

Tony McArdle/Everton FC

In today's Daily Mail the excellent Martin Samuel accuses Chelsea of lacking a philosophy. He is totally right. What is the club philosophy? More importantly, what is the club's strategy? And did the two brilliantly executed goals by Romelu Lukaku on Saturday do anything to remind those who make decisions at the club that their player buying and selling strategy is a mess? As Danny Baker so eruditely tweeted: "Chelsea fans watching Lukaku. Like seeing the girl you dumped at 17 go on to be Jennifer Aniston." Ditto Kevin de Bruyne.

What was the long-term purpose of Abramovich turning a semi-fashionable but constantly under-achieving London club into one that came to regard itself as having a birthright to be in the European elite if that status eventually fizzled out through the club's own doing? Mourinho can't be blamed for the whole of Chelsea's malaise this season (though clearly a lot of it). And it would be wrong to go after scapegoats when it is obvious that the club's inconsistency and lack of stability is clubwide.

That said, much frustration or even anger should be generated by Michael Emenalo, the technical director. Not much is really known about Emenalo, or why he was appointed to such a pivotal position within the club - responsible for player development as well as talent acquisition, along with Abramovich acolyte Marina Granovskaia who handles transfer negotiations. I'm sure the latter has done a pretty good job in getting good deals from a financial point of view, but has this duo delivered anything much when it comes to players?

Antonio Conte (assuming it is he that becomes the 13th manager of Abramovich's reign) will no doubt demand new players. Indeed he's probably already handed in his shopping list. Fine. A new coach brings in fresh blood. But what about all the dead wood? Will he be able to reduce the ridiculously wasteful player loans? Will he make more of an effort to see youth promoted from the cup-winning 'development' sides?

Cynics might scoff at terms like "rebuilding" and "transition" - and with some merit, too - but these are what Chelsea now needs. Accept that John Terry is no longer viable. Accept that Eden Hazard is no longer willing. Accept that Costa would rather be anywhere else. Accept that if you're going to buy players, you'd better have a vision for them, and play them. Unearth the talented 18, 19, 20 and 21-year-olds the club has about the place and discard the panic buys and acquisitions that were doing anyone else a favour but the club. Build up a new core, one that in principle can emulate the spine that Čech, Terry, Lampard and Drogba provided for so many of those successful Abramovich years.

If that responsibility does fall to Conte, it will be interesting to see just how far the 46-year-old gets. Though we never know anything of Abramovich's true ambitions, he had recognised in re-hiring Mourinho (mainly because he couldn't get Pep Guardiola and Mourinho couldn't get Old Trafford) that they would aim to establish a "dynasty" at Chelsea. This, despite the knowledge that 'long-term' for Mourinho never means more than three years. Within 24 hours of signing a lucrative contract extension last August, the Portuguese was jumping up and down at his club doctor. And the rest of the season, and indeed the dynasty building, would simply have to be put down to experience.

To look at this mess positively then, we must adopt the phrase "today is the first day of the rest of your life", an expression that is both simplistic and, yet, alive with positivity. Chelsea will stoicly chalk up the last seven or eight months as character building. But they will have to do more.

Bringing in a manager like Conte is not, in reality, any different than any of the 12 "permanent" managers they've brought in before. He'll be no more of a miracle worker than even The Special One. His reputation is good, but not especially impressive by comparison to any other elite manager.

The question is whether he'll be able to buck the trends that have thwarted others. He will need assurances that Chelsea is his to rebuild. Experience has taught us that is unlikely. For until Abramovich shakes himself free from the hangers-on who "advise" him, who convince him that the likes of Emenalo are qualified to make big strategic decisions, Chelsea could hire me for all the good that it will do.

Arrested development

Of course it was all down to me. My first visit to Stamford Bridge since Christmas, and Chelsea pummel Newcastle United 5-1, the game largely won within the first 18 minutes via three goals that left the visitors shell-shocked. Clearly, my presence was the only explanation for Chelsea suddenly putting in a ruthless performance. At last.

The truth of the matter, however, is that Chelsea's performance yesterday was the result of one single, even straightforward improvement: confidence. Tactics, positioning and all that good stuff played their part, but as I spent most of the four months between August 8 and José Mourinho's sacking telling anyone who'd listen, Chelsea's problems were all psychological. They were simply broken on the inside. Yesterday they looked anything but. Incredible what a difference Guus Hiddink has made with just a lighter touch.

However, we should avoid too much excitement. Hiddink has merely arrested the relegation form. Chelsea are, today, 12th in the Premier League, as opposed to 16th when Mourinho was sacked. Victory over Newcastle was Hiddink's first league home win since taking over (the 3-1 result on December 19 could hardly be chalked up to the Dutchman, coming just two days after being appointed). But while this may sound ungrateful - it's not - the confidence Hiddink has instilled in his browbeaten and previously disinterested players will surely bode well for at least an FA Cup run and, who knows, the unlikely turnover of PSG in the Champions League.

Pleasing as it was to see a blistering win by Chelsea from my own season ticketed seat, the realist - some might say cynic - in me knows that Hiddink's task is merely one of brief containment. Any absence from Europe next season will surely herald an exodus in the summer. Diego Costa will undoubtedly return to Atletico Madrid, Eden Hazard will get to realise his ambition of playing for Real Madrid (unless PSG come in for him), John Terry will probably kick his last for Chelsea against Leicester City on the final day of the season, and others, like Willian, Courtois and Oscar, will probably get itchy feet themselves ahead of a new manager coming in.

And perhaps that is for the best. With 34 or so players of every discipline out on loan, and one of the most successful youth squads continuing to add to their trophy haul, surely even the most bizarre transfer policy at Chelsea must recognise that a generationally-rare opportunity to rebuild with young talent presents itself next season.

The question is how prepared Roman Abramovich and his lickspittle board are to let the Chelsea field lie fallow for a season. No Europe means no Champions League TV windfall, which means a relatively lean year with which to reduce the club's debt. And then there's the matter of a new manager. Who, of Europe and Latin America's potentially available elite coaches will be prepared to come in, work with a fresh young squad without the attraction of Champions League football?

A Manuel Pellegrini or a Mark Hughes might, but it's unlikely either will figure in the frame of reference of the Chelsea board, especially one whose ambition to find a replacement striker extends only as far as buying a crocked Alexandre Pato to cover for an even more crocked Radamel Falcao, who in turn was desperately intended to fill the gap left by Fernando Torres. See what I'm saying here? 

One sometimes wonders whether those in charge of talent acquisition at Chelsea really know what football is about at all, given some of the names that have come in only to be forgotten. So it doesn't bode well for the next choice of manager...unless, having been thwarted repeatedly in his attempts to sign Pep Guardiola, Roman Abramovich goes all out to land Mauricio Pochettino, who would be the best option for bringing a squad of youngsters up to European prowess.

Whatever happens, let's just agree that Chelsea today may have improved from the form they were in back in December, and they may well push on in at least the FA Cup. But they do, slightly, flatter to deceive. Against MK Dons in the cup two weeks ago they could have - actually, they should have - won by ten goals or more. The scoreline that afternoon ended 5-1, as did yesterday's. A useful reminder that progress and improvement, when you've been as deep in despair as Chelsea were, is still only relative.