Once more into the breach…

How has your summer been? Time to relax and switch off? Read a book or two on the beach? I hope so. For me, it’s been about trying to mute anything and everything about Chelsea Football Club. Until now, at least. 

Last season, as some may have noticed, was a bin fire from kick-off to final whistle. Three managers (four if you include a one-match caretaker), a £600 million trolley dash to bring in new players in the the aftermath of a protracted and complicated takeover, all resulting in a 12th place Premier League finish, the club’s lowest season end in 29 years.

As politicians say when forced to resign for foul and unpleasant affairs of the bedroom kind, this summer has been a time for quiet reflection for all concerned with the football club. For me, it’s meant avoiding the self-appointed ‘experts’ on social media claiming to have the inside track on everything going on at Chelsea. Because for the most part, much of what I have seen has been speculative at best, utter bollocks at most. Only occasionally has some kernel of reality come through. 

Take the example of Moisés Caicedo, the Equadorian midfielder Chelsea have been pursuing all summer from Brighton & Hove Albion. At the time of writing this, it’s not entirely sure where he will be playing his football this season. Yesterday Chelsea appeared to have been gazumped at the 11th hour by Liverpool (conveniently, Chelsea’s opening day opponents tomorrow) with a bid Brighton accepted of £111 million. However, the player himself has expressed a preference of playing in London. Chelsea’s pursuit of Caicedo has, apparently, taken much of the last two months, with co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart managing a process that saw three or four bids of up to £80 million knocked back by Brighton insisting that the player is worth £100 million. As it now stands, Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly and co-controlling owner Behdad Eghbali have taken personal charge of the discussions - not a good look for either Winstanley or Stewart - in the hope of rescuing a deal for the one player Chelsea really want this summer. A new bid of £115 million might be on the table by the time you read this.  

It is, though, quite possible that Chelsea were never going to land Caicedo, given the south coast club’s insistence of his valuation. Plus the two clubs have enjoyed a weird relationship of late, with Chelsea having taken Graham Potter and his entire coaching staff off their hands last season, after the Londoners had been rinsed for the signature of Marc Cucurella for an inexplicable initial fee of £55 million. This season, in parallel to the Caicedo deal, Brighton appeared to make it very clear that they wanted to retain Chelsea loanee defender Levi Colwill, possibly as a makeweight in a deal for the midfielder. Colwill has now signed a lucrative six-year contract with Chelsea, with whom he’s been on the books since childhood. Oh, and by the way, Chelsea have taken second-choice goalkeeper Robert Sánchez off Brighton in recent weeks. What was that about all’s fair in love and war?

While other names will no doubt continue to be bandied about by the aforementioned experts in the remaining days of the summer transfer window, given the importance of tomorrow’s season opener, it’s probably time to focus energies on other matters. As one fan commented on Twitter (or X or whatever the hell Space Karen calls it now), “it seems people are more bothered about who we sign than how we play”.

Picture: Chelsea FC

So what are Chelsea’s prospects for Season 23-24? Fresh beginnings, for a start, including a new head coach, Mauricio Pochettino. The former Spurs manager officially arrived on 1 July, having been under consideration by Chelsea since at least Thomas Tuchel’s departure, and with Frank Lampard appointed only temporarily as Graham Potter’s replacement (who, in turn, replaced Tuchel, who’d also replaced Lampard – hope you’re keeping up), the Argentinian has had plenty of time to run the rule over what the job would entail.

Before even a whiteboard had been scribbled on with team tactics, Pochettino’s first job has been to oversee the transformation of a bloated squad that, last season, grew so large there weren’t enough places in the training ground changing room for everyone. Since the end of May, 13 senior players have left in the current transfer window, including Mason Mount (to Manchester United), Kai Havertz (to Arsenal) and Mateo Kovacic (to Manchester City) – three key individuals to direct league rivals – along with captain César Azpilicueta, Christian Pulisic, N'Golo Kante and Kalidou Koulibay. Exit solutions are still to be found for at least Romelu Lukaku and Hakim Zyech, if not others. 

Most fans had grown comfortable with these departures, even that of Mount, who’d been at the club since he was eight and was largely thought of as a future captain. However, over the course of last season he’d looked increasingly disinterested, while it was well known that his contract was running down. Most fans were resigned to losing him on the basis that no player is bigger than the club. Kai Havertz was a slightly different case: though capable of scoring important goals (his Champions League winner against City in Porto being the most prominent), he seemed to struggle in his own shadow.

Picture: Chelsea FC

While dramatic, this summer’s player exits have all been justified, even if seeing players move to rivals has been tough to comprehend. By contrast, the appointment of Pochettino took some time to bed in with a section of the fan base. 

There was predictable knuckle dragging over his history as Spurs’ manager when he was first announced, but thankfully most right-minded individuals saw the opportunity Poch represents – a coach with a history of bringing on young players. Admittedly, a lack of silverware at Spurs might have dimmed some people’s view of him, but that may have simply had more to do with the limitations of that club. With, possibly, disingenuity, Pochettino described Chelsea as “a different club, different period, different process, different project”, when he arrived, adding: “For me, football is about to win”. Make of that what you will.

Not unlike Spurs, or indeed anywhere else, expectations are high and timescales are short. “It’s a parallel line,” he told The Athletic’s Liam Twomey, saying that he has to simultaneously think short-, medium- and long-term. “Our plan first of all is one year and then we go and cut into six months, three months, one month, one week and then day by day. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking to win. My idea and message to the players, the fans and everyone is that we are Chelsea and we need to win. Today, yesterday, not tomorrow. At the same time we need to be working hard and being clever in how we are going to prepare next month, next six months and the year.”

Whatever the timeline, Pochettino has been somewhat forced to start his tenure at Chelsea by getting established with the smaller squad he prefers. For those players who haven’t left, he will have had to pick up an inevitably demoralised group following last season’s travails. In his first week in charge, Pochettino hosted a barbecue for players and staff as a welcome gesture. Reports from the pre-season tour of the United States have suggested a well-motivated and happy group, despite being put through Pochettino’s notoriously gruelling fitness regime (particularly needed given how sluggish Chelsea looked last season, although that may also have been due to disinterest).

Any manager will tell you that pre-season is never long enough to prepare for the exhaustive rigours of elite club football – especially in England with two domestic cups to play for on top of the league and, if qualified, Europe. Endurance not withstanding, Pochettino’s new charges will also need to adapt to his tactical thinking, favouring an asymmetrical 4-2-3-1 formation. How that works out may well depend on how balanced a squad the club finally provide him with - one of the key drawbacks for last season’s managers when the new owners’ spending spree delivered players for various parts of the pitch (and not always where they were needed, either).

The Chelsea squad jets off for pre-season in the USA
Picture: Chelsea FC

In terms of ambition, Chelsea start this season from a low base. After last season’s moribundity, even Champions League qualification seems like a hill to climb, especially with a strong Manchester City, a rejuvenated Arsenal and a revamped Manchester United in the way, not to mention Liverpool getting its mojo back, and even Aston Villa and Newcastle competing for top places. A cup is always possible, too, but perhaps Chelsea fans will have to accept a fallow season as Pochettino establishes his leaner, younger squad and builds back up for the future. He’s only been given a two-year contract, with a one-year extension, so he knows that time is not unlimited. As last season’s revolving managerial door demonstrated, the schismatic approach to managerial job security, established over decades but made more ruthless under, first, Ken Bates, then Roman Abramovich and latterly the Boehly-Clearlake consortium, means that Pochettino will still have to chalk up victories quite quickly.

Goals would be a start. The early part of Graham Potter’s spell in charge gave Chelsea some headroom when their league position started tumbling towards Christmas and continued afterwards. Without those results it’s conceivable that a club that had spent close to £600 million on new players could have been relegated. 

For the average fan – and I count myself as one – it was the lack of goals last season that proved the most disappointing. Blame what you want – lack of a striker, disinterested forwards, VAR, Anthony Taylor, changing managers, global warming – we go to football matches to watch our teams score more times than the opponent does. It’s that simple. And, yet, despite the eye-watering amount of money represented by those on the pitch (yes, you Raheem Sterling), even that seemed beyond their grasp.

Christopher Nkunku 
Picture: Chelsea FC

In Christopher Nkunku, signed in-principle from RB Leipzig in January but not released until the end of last season, we thought we’d acquired a recognisable centre forward. In pre-season, that looked very much the case, until an Ed Sheeran concert messed up Chicago’s Soldier Field ahead of Chelsea playing Borussia Dortmund in a friendly, and the Frenchman was relieved of a functioning knee until December. Back, then, to the drawing board. 

The £31 million acquisition of Senegal national Nicolas Jackson could offset Nkunku’s loss, looking very useful indeed during pre-season, scoring two goals in two games and contributing four assists. As any Chelsea fan will tell you, however, we’ve all been let down before by the prospect of an out-and-out striker who has failed to live up to expectations. The Number 9 shirt is widely considered to be a curse. 

Chelsea’s transfer business this summer has been one of both practical need and fiscal provenance. After last season’s ridiculous outlay, acquisitions have been more considered, with a view to getting the wage bill down and complying with Financial Fair Play (even with, now, a Premier League investigation hanging over the club as a result of allegedly murky deals during the Abramovich era).

“What we cannot have is a massive squad - players not be involved and then it’s going to create a mess in the squad,” Pochettino told journalists in Atlanta during the US tour. “Maybe less is more and more is less. It is not mathematic. That is why I need to make clear we don’t need a big squad. We need 22, 23, 24 players, with some younger and that’s it. I am so sorry because maybe the decision will be tough but we need to build a good and a balanced team who want to compete for things.”

As it stands, that balance is still not there. Missing out on Caicedo still leaves a hole in midfield. Buying Enzo Fernandez last season for a then-record £107 million for a midfielder (and therefore setting a precedent for the likes of Caicedo and Declan Rice) was an investment in the future, but he can’t be expected to cover every midfield need. With longtime target Rice going to Arsenal, Fernandez needs a dynamic midfield partner. Caicedo or Southampton’s Roméo Lavia could fulfil that role. Conor Gallagher, who by default has now become one of the squad’s senior players, should also look the part – and ticks another box for fans as a homegrown player - but still needs some convincing to do. Much expectation will fall on the shoulders of Mykhailo Mudryk, the Ukrainian wunderkind bought from under Arsenal’s noses for £62 million but yet to demonstrate fully what all the excitement about. There will also be increased pressure on Sterling – himself acquired in last year’s summer madness and currently the club’s top wage earner, without so far showing anything to justify that largesse.

Supporters will, for this season at least, have to be consigned to hope over reality. Pre-season has been fascinating, if only to see what Pochettino can achieve with youngsters – his stock-in-trade. Young Brazilian signing Andrey Santos has been one, as has 21-year-old Ian Maatsen, another product of Chelsea’s legendary academy. Both were noted for having outperformed more senior, more seasoned, and more expensive members of the squad during the US tour. Securing Colwill, too, will give the player an opportunity to demonstrate why Brighton was so keen to keep him, especially given Wesley Fofana’s latest injury setback, and the fact that Thiago Silva – bless him – can’t, at 39, be expected to anchor the defence with his mastery week in week out. With Fofana out for an unspecified period for the start of a second season running, Chelsea have brought in Axel Disasi from Monaco for £38 million. We can only hope that he doesn’t turn out to be another disaster like Kalidou Koulibaly last time out.

Captain Reece James
Picture: Chelsea FC

Responsibility will fall inevitably on Chelsea’s newly appointed captain, Reece James. Like Mount, Gallagher and indeed Colwill, James is a club product, having joined the club as a six-year-old. But whereas Mount’s head was turned – quite noticeably, it has to be said - by the possibility of football elsewhere, James has shown relatively unwavering commitment to the club that also has his sister Lauren on the books. The right wingback has long looked like captaincy material but with a caveat: when fit. Most fans will be pleased to see the likeable 23-year-old take on the mantle, but his injury will raise questions about consistency. 

Ben Chilwell, James’ left-sided counterpart has been appointed vice-captain, another sensible move for one of the most under-rated grown-ups in the Chelsea squad. He, too, has had a troubled history with injuries, so Pochettino must hope that his captain and his deputy won’t need another backup option. 

Leadership wasn’t always in evidence last season, with some games descending into farce as players started making things up for themselves on the pitch. “He’s a player that is a leader,” Pochettino said of his new skipper during Friday’s press conference. “He’s the present and he’s going to be the future of the club. He’s a perfect player for me and the club to be a captain.”

Viewed from one angle, Chelsea still look somewhat dysfunctional, both on the pitch and behind the scenes (for their opening game tomorrow against Liverpool they still don’t have a primary shirtfront sponsor). That said, the seismic upheavals that characterised 2022 for the club are still reverberating. 19 years of mostly relentless success under the Abramovich regime left fans with an inflated sense of expectation that the Boehly-Clearlake takeover would ensure continuity. It didn’t, although if the new owners would admit it, they didn’t get everything right themselves.

For his part, Pochettino’s job will be to not only rebuild the squad, tactically and spiritually, but rebuild some of the damaged goodwill towards the fans, who turned up at Stamford Bridge, or travelled to away fixtures, irrespective of how poor the games turned out to be. “We are building something special, I think,” he told journalists in America during the pre-season tour.

He qualified that statement by saying: “It’s a process and we need time. But in football, you cannot ask for time and you need to deliver from now. We know that we are in Chelsea and even if we have young players that will be involved against Liverpool [in the opening fixture], the mentality is to win. We are preparing ourselves to know the first game will be tough and then the next game also but we need to arrive with a good mentality.”

Chelsea, as a club, has liked to talk about “projects” for a while. The Boehly-Clearlake takeover has been one. When Tuchel, Potter and then Lampard used the phrase last season it sounded somewhat hollow, a PR phrase drummed up to excuse a work-in-progress. The fact is, every football season is a work in progress. Every team selection an experiment. A 4-3-3 formation at the start of a match can very easily change shape several times in the course of proceedings. It is, as Danny Baker once shrewdly observed, “chaos”. Thus, too much store is placed on the speculative summer weeks, which is why I tuned out in the first place. Tomorrow is the start of the period in which matters really count.

A tale of two Chelseas

If ever you wanted a weekend of footballing contrasts, these last two days provided it amply, and from one single club, too. On Saturday, Emma Hayes’ relentless pursuit of success saw Chelsea secure a fourth straight Women’s Super League title. 24 hours later Chelsea’s senior men’s team brought the curtain down on a miserable season that couldn’t have ended soon enough. One Chelsea delivered a league and cup double, the other, a Premier League bottom-half finish - 12th place, their lowest position since 1994 and their worst points tally for 30 years. That’s the kind of form that would have otherwise led to relegation were it not for the even more anaemic performances of the eight teams below them. 

Now, before anyone throws the gender debate back at me, the essential comparison being made here is that one Chelsea is managed by a tactically astute head coach who, over the past 11 years, has built, maintained and enriched the team with a profound working relationship with her players, backed by investment in the best available talent. The other has, over the course of this last season, had four different managers, each charged with integrating an embarrassment of riches acquired by a £600 million supermarket trolley dash.

And there, again, is that word: “embarrassment”. It was infamously invoked by co-owner Todd Boehly after a particularly egregious home defeat to Brighton in April. While he wasn’t wrong - chewing out the team in the changing room - many Chelsea fans felt that Boehly should have undertaken some self-reflection before making such a comment, even though in a literal sense, the players he was laying into, bought for inflated fees and in some cases, paid inflated wages, have been embarrassing. All. Season. Long.

Was it their fault though? To be blunt, yes. Six-figure weekly remuneration should be enough to incentivise anyone to deliver. But that, though, takes an extremely simplistic view of the problem. The harsh reality is that there is a collective responsibility at Chelsea for the way this season has gone - from the highest echelon on down. I don’t wish to sound churlish about the Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium who effectively saved the club, after Roman Abramovich was forced to sell up. But the way they went about running their new toy in the wake of their £2.5 billion takeover has fuelled a level of negativity towards them that took rival club owners like Manchester United’s Glazer family and Liverpool’s Fenway Sports Group years, not months, to establish.

It shouldn’t be forgotten, though, that the ensuing dysfunction only spread to the men’s half of Chelsea. After the Women’s FA Cup Final, Hayes herself reflected on how things had gone elsewhere in her organisation: “It will bug me if I don’t say this - I’m a football fan and I’ve watched how much my club has suffered this year. We’ve had ownership changes, the men’s team hasn’t been brilliant.” And she added: “Chelsea fans - this [FA Cup title] is for you. I hope we had a little bit of joy tonight. I hope we gave you something where you can smile about it this year. The whole club, owners included.”

According to media reports, Boehly is now believed to be taking a step back from day-to-day control. Since the takeover, and the splurge on players that he personally oversaw, the management structure has supposedly been strengthened, with the appointment of co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, amongst other senior figures. But according to some players there have been critical exits elsewhere, particularly in medical staff and members of the ‘pit crew’ that keep the highly tuned Formula 1 car that is a Premier League football team on the road. Frank Lampard (manager #4), installed as interim manager following manager #2 Graham Potter’s sacking in April has hinted at this: “Chelsea has been a big success for 20 years but at the moment we aren’t in that position,” he said early in his tenure. “In the time I’ve been here, it’s pretty evident and clear to see - behind the scenes, on the training ground - the reasons why.” Ever the PR man, his comments were far from cryptic.

It is, though, possible that problems at Chelsea have been even deeper seated. Dysfunction, in one form or another, has long been the stream flowing though the club. BT Sport took fans of a certain vintage back to the era of chairman Ken Bates earlier this year with the excellent documentary Pound Land: Battle Of The Bridge. It sourced the origin of Chelsea’s modern day state to the hubris that followed a brief flirtation with the big time in the early 1970s, which brought a couple of trophies and Raquel Welch to Stamford Bridge. The spiralling cost of building the stand I sit in to this day amid the ’70s economy almost bankrupted the club, which was then sold to Bates for a nominal pound, only for him to be forced into an existential battle with property developers threatening to flatten the ground completely and put Chelsea out of business.

With the developers soundly beaten, Bates then took on the arrival of Matthew Harding as a director and investor, creating another power struggle. Harding, though, paved the way for new investment, and with it Glenn Hoddle, followed by European elite players like Ruud Gullit, Gianluca Vialli and Gianfranco Zola (admittedly, nearing the end of their careers). A new Chelsea emerged, enjoying less profligate times in the then-new Premier League. A remarkable goal on the final day of the 2002-2003 season from Jesper Grönkjaer propelled Chelsea into the Champions League at Liverpool’s expense, and along came Abramovich with his bottomless cheque book, followed by 20 trophies in 19 years. And 13 managers.

Low levels of job security were always priced in to any managerial appointment in the Abramovich era. The Boehly-Clearlake takeover heralded talk of long-term projects and stability. Tell that to Thomas Tuchel (manager #1): having replaced Lampard in January 2021 - with the club on much the same trajectory as it has this season - Tuchel took the team to a Champions League final within four months and won it. He then masterminded a victory in the World Club Cup the following year…only to be fired just a month into the season now ending. So much for a new regime.

Before tackling the What Happened Next? chapter of this story, it is worth framing managerial turnover in the context of player arrivals and departures. Player power has led to the undermining of many of Chelsea’s managers in the modern era. They know that if their form goes or they fall out of favour, the worst that can happen is that their agent lands them a cushy berth somewhere else. Such players are hardly likely to respond to a vulnerable coach when results go against them. Which brings me to Graham Potter.

From the outset he was handed an impossible task. Despite a reputation for creating the perfect developmental culture at Brighton on a relatively modest budget, at Chelsea he was effectively the driver of a family hatchback suddenly handed the keys to a lurid, bonkers Lamborghini. Actually, 32 of them. At first, Potter’s appointment seemed like a sharp move: a young manager who’d developed an attractive manner of play on the South Coast. But, by the time of the World Cup, and the extended international break, Potter was expressing his relief at having some time to figure out what was going wrong.

Boehly’s spending, seemingly adding people the club didn’t know it needed but bought anyway without strengthening in the departments where the need was most acute, loaded the dice for Potter. As his international players returned from Qatar, and the January window opened with Chelsea doing even more business, Potter’s fate was sealed. Despite having several weeks to figure it out, results continued to be dismal, and yet Potter now had even more new players to work with. Disquiet in the Stamford Bridge stands became more audible. As January gave way to February, the #potterout movement proliferated and, by the time he was eventually fired in April, hostility had become substantial.

Following the brief one-match tenure of Potter’s assistant, Bruno Saltor (manager #3 - effectively, the Liz Truss appointment of the season), the club decided that it would take time to consider its next permanent appointment, bringing back Lampard for the final few weeks.

Let’s be very clear, this was no more than a PR sop towards fan toxicity, but as an exercise in appeasement, it didn’t work. For all. Of the eleven games Lampard was in charge of, eight were defeats.Although most Chelsea fans still revere Lampard the player, these few weeks have damaged his managerial brand, possibly irreparably. “If you ask me what I have learned in this short period,” he reflected ruefully after the abject 4-1 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford, “In terms of coaching, not so much. I’ve been in in this situation as a player when you have an interim after a change of manager. A lot of the plus-points you gain are about what the team is fighting for. Can you find that extra bit? And we haven’t found that as a collective. The results say so.”

With yesterday’s final whistle at Stamford Bridge, Lampard’s second spell as Chelsea manager came to a dismal end, albeit with a smidgen of pride restored by a 1-1 draw with Newcastle at Stamford Bridge. But it also heralded a new cycle of change. Financial Fair Play rules means the club will have to trim its senior squad. Step forward, then, Mauricio Pochettino, announced today as Chelsea’s new head coach, on a two-year contract.

The 51-year-old Argentinian’s appointment has been in the works for a long time. He was even considered by Abramovich when Lampard left in 2021, and again by the new owners when Tuchel was fired last September. So, has Chelsea finally got their man? No one knows. History has shown that it doesn’t matter whether a club makes a considered appointment or a knee-jerk, instinctive hire, nothing lasts forever, no matter how smiley the obligatory contract-signing/shirt-holding photo session.

Chelsea promised a “thorough” process to identify and appoint a permanent new manager following Potter’s sacking, but whatever technical requirements were on the shopping list in early April, the weeks since will have amped up the need to restore pride and cohesion to a team that has become a laughing stock amongst rival fans. That same tribalism informed some initial misgivings about Pochettino’s Tottenham connection (before that particular quadrant of the Twittersphere was rightly shut down by reminders of where Hoddle had played for 13 years before launching Chelsea’s supposedly continuing era of elite competition). 

The task Pochettino is facing is huge. First, he has to prune an enormous 32-player squad (so big there aren’t enough spaces in the Cobham changing room for everyone). There are plenty of candidates, and while the process won’t be pain-free, those who’ve looked increasingly ineffective, disinterested or unmotivated will be easier to live without.

Hopefully, what will be left from this exercise will be a smaller, younger and more ambitious squad, something Pochettino is historically well suited to developing. He’ll have a lot to work with. It’s been hard to gauge what Lampard’s selection strategy has been over the last few weeks and what clues that might provide as to what his successor will do, given that as Pochettino has conducted his own contract negotiations he is also believed to have informed the Chelsea hierarchy who he’d like to work with from the existing squad. 

Given his reputation for developing youth, that bodes well for young homegrown left back Lewis Hall. Still only 18, and clearly with a lot to learn, he has taken his opportunity well with Ben Chilwell and Marc Cucurella both out of action, with gutsy performances since Lampard played him in his final games in charge. Similarly Noni Madueke, the 21-year-old Englishman signed in January from PSV Eindhoven who has already shown himself to be far more interested in playing up the right wing than Hakim Zyech or Christian Pulisic have ever done. More puzzling is the development prospects for Carney Chukwuemeka, the 19-year-old midfielder signed from Aston Villa with great expectation, but whom Lampard appeared to keep at arms length. At the centre of midfield sits the Argentinian Enzo Fernández, bought in January for a staggering £106.8 million but, at 22 and a long-term contract, the kind of player Pochettino might build around.

He is also thought to be a fan of using homegrown talent, something Lampard, during his first spell in charge, made good use of, with Chelsea Academy graduates like Reece James, Tammy Abraham (now at Roma) and Fikayo Tamori (now at Milan). Unless sold in the domestic departures, Pochettino would do well to retain Conor Gallagher, another youth product. He will also want to call upon 20-year-old Levi Colwill, the central defender who joined Chelsea as a schoolboy and who has been getting regular football on loan at Brighton. Given that 39-year-old Thiago Silva can’t possibly go on forever, the thinking is that Colwill could be integrated into Chelsea’s backline (ideally, with Silva retained as a defensive coach to maximise his exhaustive experience).

Pochettino’s biggest headache, though, will be Mason Mount. At 24, and a Chelsea player since he was 8, he is the ideal figure the club needs and Pochettino wants. Personable, mature, and therefore a PR asset (making him captaincy material, with Azpiliqueta nearing the door), he is also about to enter the final year of his contract, with nothing yet agreed on a renewal despite months of speculation. For such an asset, Mount and Chelsea have been engaged in a weird, socially-distanced dance in recent weeks, with negotiations either progressing slowly or not at all. Pochettino might make a last-ditch attempt to persuade him to stay at his boyhood club, but with Manchester United and Liverpool circling, and interest from Arsenal, too, the prospect of cashing in on a player valued at around £55 million could be too tempting for the club to resist. After the Newcastle game yesterday, Mount was part of the team lap-of-honour at Stamford Bridge. To most watching on, it felt like farewell.

As it did when Ruben Loftus-Cheek, another youth product, was subsituted, giving an emotional wave to Stamford Bridge that appeared to confirm speculation that he’ll be off, possibly to AC Milan. Selling Mount, along with Loftus-Cheek, Trevoh Chalobah, Callum Hudson-Odoi and even Gallagher would not only make money, but as homegrown players balance out Financial Fair Play regulations. Other disposals will just save money, such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Kalidou Koulibaly, two of last summer’s inexplicable, and expensively reumunerated purchases. Whoever goes, it is understood that Chelsea will need to do their selling business before the end of June, when the transactions can be recorded in the club’s accounts for the season. That won’t rule out new players coming in (Leipzig’s Golden Boot-winning French striker Christopher Nkunku is believed to have already agreed a move to Chelsea this summer). 

Pochettino will need - and want - to work with a much smaller squad, comprising players with a shared hunger and a sense of team spirit that has, this season, been glaringly absent. If some rumours are to be believed, a lack of commitment from some players has combined to disastrous effect with a lack of confidence in other. A fundamental rebuild will, then, be essential. Not just in personnel, but in what motivates them. In that, there is a lot to learn from the season now ended. 

All seasons can seem overly long by May, but for us Chelsea fans, 2022-23 has felt endless. A touchline mini-fracas between Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte, when Spurs manager, now seems distant. As does the World Cup, with all of the culture war brouhaha it engendered. Another new era at Chelsea awaits, but fans used to trophies will have to wait longer before seeing another open-top bus parade on the Fulham Road. But it’s not a lost cause: Erik ten Hag effectively rebuilt Manchester United in a season, following a similar period of managerial turmoil. Mikel Arteta took Arsenal to almost the Premier League title this term, despite a particularly rocky start to his time as their manager. As long as Pochettino is allowed to get on with his work, and expectations are managed accordingly, who knows where Chelsea could end up?

While he is, though, something of a compromise, his appointment at the third time of asking is more of a marriage of convenience. “Everything at Chelsea fits,” wrote Spanish football expert Guillem Balague when Pochettino emerged as the most likely candidate for the job. “It is a young squad, a thriving academy coupled with a desire from the owners to bring youth through, a philosophy that is aggressive and dynamic with high pressure and loads of energy.”

Pochettino has also been out of a job for almost a year, since parting company with Paris Saint-Germain, evidently taking his time to find the right project. “He has taken a good look at himself and what he did wrong at the French club, what he could have done better and how he can avoid making similar mistakes at Chelsea,” Balague added. “He needs to have the energy to be able to mould players, know that the players are listening to him and have the authority to ensure that this is happening.”

He will need a degree of autonomy rarely granted Chelsea managers in the modern era. Fixing Chelsea will not be an overnight job. Patience - the sport’s most precious commodity - has never been abundant at this football club. There’s no suggestion that the cycle is about to be broken by Pochettino’s appointment, but with no European football next season and a gentler fixture list, he will have a bit more time and space to craft the squad in the way that he wants to. How long he gets to restore incoming traffic to the Stamford Bridge trophy room remains to be seen.

At the end of the day, no one knows. Day One of a new coach’s tenure always brims with hope, expectation and optimism. Until it goes wrong. That’s been the case with Chelsea forever (with, perhaps, the one exception of Rafa Benitez, who trolled everyone by winning the Europa League as interim head coach, despite being regarded as an inflammatory appointment). Pochettino does have a record of playing good football, at Espanyol, Southampton, Tottenham and PSG, and while he is certainly not held in the same regard as, say, a Guardiola, he has at least managed well with what he’s had at his disposal. Even Chelsea’s most jaded fans should remember that he came close to winning the Premier League twice - in 2016 and 2017 - with Spurs. Which makes you wonder what he would be capable of in SW6, assuming he can sort out the mess he’s inheriting. He is, to cite Balague, a “hungry manager” after a year away from day-to-day management. Let’s hope that hunger pays off.

Just when you think you've figured football out...

“Football,” Danny Baker first observed back in the 1990s, “is chaos”. It's a theme he regularly returns to in his frequent rants on Twitter, usually of an evening while a so-called ‘elite’ fixture is taking place on television. The thinking is that the vast array of punditry deployed by the media suggests that there is something ‘scientific’ about the beautiful game, other worldly and therefore self-considered to be beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. This, Baker contests, is bogus.

I raise this largely as a result of the chaos at Chelsea this season. Graham Potter, who replaced the fired Thomas Tuchel, who replaced the fired Frank Lampard, has just been replaced on an interim basis by...Frank Lampard. “It is totally in keeping with the current chaos [that word again] at Chelsea under co-controlling owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali and the Clearlake group,” the BBC’s chief football writer Phil McNulty wrote on the corporation’s website, highlighting how, since the takeover last summer, the new owners had pumped in £600 million to buy new players, sacked Tuchel and then Potter after just 31 games in charge. “But the return of Lampard might just be the most eyebrow-raising development of the lot,” he added.

We like to think there’s logic going on at our football clubs. We expect it to be an exact science because coaching and training is governed by xG statistics and computer modelling. Clubs employ technical directors and sporting directors (I still don’t quite know the difference) on top of ‘head coaches’ (never, these days, simply “manager”) amongst the phalanx of specialists keeping the complex Formula 1 car that is a top football team on the track. Everything is therefore planned, programmed and finely tuned to the nth degree. It’s not. Because then you send your team out, and Kai Havertz is selected to lead the line.

On Tuesday night, Chelsea’s first interim coach of the week, Bruno Saltor (who’d never before picked a team at this level) put out more or less the same side that had lost so egregiously to Aston Villa three evenings previously, leading to Potter’s dismissal. Against Liverpool, it was largely painting by numbers to the untrained eye, and probably to more informed observers, too. It was also an abject reminder of just how both Chelsea and their opponents on the night have fallen this season. “Mid-table mediocrity,” one match report concluded. “Two bald men fighting over a comb,” was my erudite contribution.

Unbeknownst to most of us at Stamford Bridge until newspapers ran the picture you see at the top of this post, Lampard was observing from an executive box, the guest of Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, Chelsea’s two sporting directors. This quickly turned into the suggestion that the 44-year-old could be on his way back, though in what capacity wasn’t known. At the same time, the former Spain coach Luis Enrique was said to have flown in to London for talks with the club about the vacant manager’s position, while the newly available former Bayern Munich boss Julian Nagelsmann was also under consideration, along with a fairly predictable list of runners and riders drawn from the European leagues.

At some point on Wednesday it emerged that Lampard was being considered as an interim solution, a stopgap to the end of the season, enabling the club to take until then to consider candidates for the full-time job with, perhaps, more care than that they applied after Tuchel’s abrupt exit. With a two-leg Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid (under Lampard’s old boss Carlo Ancelotti) to play, starting next week, and some pride to be restored in the Premier League, putting Chelsea’s record goalscorer back in charge would at least be good PR. By Wednesday evening, the Lampard banner, unfurled in the Matthew Harding Lower section before kickoffs during his previous spell, was being retrieved from the back of whichever cupboard it had been stashed away in when its subject was fired - apparently with deep regret - by Roman Abramovich in January 2021.

“It’s a pretty easy decision for me,” said Lampard 26 months later, at a press conference yesterday. “This is my club. I have a lot of emotions and feelings. I’ve come with a belief I can come and help the cause until the end of the season. I’ll give my utmost to give the fans what they want until the end of the season. There’s a lot of talent in the squad. I’m excited to work with that talent and to help them.”

We shall see. The unavoidable elephant in the room here is that Lampard was sacked by Ambramovich on the back of Chelsea taking a southerly trajectory in the Premier League, followed by his dismissal two years later from Everton, with the Merseysiders in even greater peril, recording nine defeats in 12 league games to leave them in relegation territory. In both situations, there were mitigations. But even for this lifelong Chelsea fan, all romanticism aside, you hope this latest temporary arrangement doesn’t end in tears, for a second time.

Appointing club legends as managers is fraught with peril. It’s why I hope that Gianfranco Zola never comes back to Chelsea as head coach. He is rightly held in such high regard, you’d hate that to be jeopardised. Lampard’s first spell in charge carried the same risk, which eventually came to fruition. You can only hope that, in this limited new arrangement, he knows what he’s taking on.

“Of course, it was a surprise in terms of you never know a decision the club will make,” he said yesterday when asked about coming back. “There’s been lots of change in the Premier League this year. I’ve been particularly enjoying my period at home - it’s one of those where you can really throw yourself into your family, your wife and children, things you tend to put to one side when you’re working.” He stressed that Winstanley and Stewart put forward a specific proposition: “It wasn’t simple, because you have to take a lot into account in your heart and your heart,” Lampard explained, adding, knowingly, ”but this is Chelsea”.

So what is the task at hand? After taking Chelsea to Molineux on Saturday for a Premier League fixture with Wolves, they fly to the Spanish capital for that first leg with Real Madrid, a team which ruthlessly buried Barcelona 4-1 in their Copa del Rey ‘El Clásico’ on Wednesday evening. In any other season, an encounter with Madrid would be what the modern era Chelsea does well. But in this season, Lampard’s task - getting a bloated, lop-sided squad of over-priced players to gel in a way they haven’t hitherto - seems impossible.

There is, though, some precedent. In March 2012 Roberto Di Matteo replaced the failed experiment that was André Villas-Boas, immediately improving form to deliver credible wins in the Premier League and, more significantly, progress in the Champions League, beating Barcelona in a semi-final to take on - and beat - Bayern Munich in the final. “Roberto did an incredible job to stay on,” Lampard ruminated yesterday, but in typically diffident footballer style, measured that by adding “but that’s a different time in the club’s history. What is important to me is to park it to one side and get on the job.”

Lampard has always stood out as an intelligent, personable bloke. As a player, he was always regarded as a studious one, not least because his West Ham coach father Frank Sr drilled footballing discipline into him with hothousing vigour. The same concerns Chelsea fans had when he was originally appointed as manager of the club he spent 13 years at as a player will creep back this time, but if nothing else, this unexpected coda to his two-and-a-half-spell as head coach is a masterstroke of fanbase appeasement.

Picture: Chelsea FC

“We are delighted to welcome Frank back to Stamford Bridge,” said co-controlling owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali in a statement. “Frank is a Premier League Hall of Famer and a legend at this club,” it continued by way of explaining the thinking behind the appointment. “As we continue our thorough and exhaustive process for a permanent head coach, we want to provide the club and our fans with a clear and stable plan for the remainder of the season. We want to give ourselves every chance of success and Frank has all of the characteristics and qualities we need to drive us to the finish line.”

Perhaps, then, it is another experiment. Lampard won’t necessarily provide continuity, but may at least ease the sulphurous atmosphere that engulfed Stamford Bridge as Graham Potter’s hapless reign faltered ever further. In his press conference he made clear his deep and undeniable knowledge of the club, the staff at the Cobham training ground and, most importantly, many of the current players. For those acquired since his departure, they will be fully aware of Lampard’s high esteem at the club they’ve joined as well as his standing within the game at large. That alone might pay dividends, given that Chelsea’s expensively assembled squad has at times recently looked like a group of talented individuals without any semblance of unity.

Stamford Bridge, specifically, has long been trolled by visiting fans for a perceived lack of energy amongst the support. “Is this a library?” they bate us with. That has certainly been the case of late. On social media alone, Lampard’s return has certainly put smiles back on faces but if he doesn’t get a grip on team cohesion and confidence, and instil tactical thinking that seemed to desert him at Everton, those smiles might soon disappear. Chelsea’s season has already been written off, barring unlikely progression in the Champions League, but as the latest of Chelsea’s many interim managers - Di Matteo, Hiddink, Benitez et al - Lampard has history to live up to. No pressure, then.

End of the line

If ever there was an afternoon at Stamford Bridge when I needed a pick-me-up, it was Saturday. The day before I was made redundant, and with football - to evoke Karl Marx - one of my go-to opiates, I was hoping that Chelsea would deliver. I was clearly to be disappointed. 24 hours later, Chelsea head coach Graham Potter joined me amongst the unemployed (although, it should be noted, with considerably better compensation).

Credit where it’s due, Aston Villa were just more organised, more committed and better drilled. Not for the first time this season with visitors to the Bridge, they were an opponent who didn’t create many chances, but when they did, took them well, with excellent goals from Ollie Watkins and John McGinn. Potter, in his post-match comments, would bemoan Chelsea’s better possession stats, but stats don’t win games. Goals do. 

On Saturday, as it has been for countless Saturdays this season, not to mention some Sundays, the occasional Wednesday and one obscure Friday, it was hard to see where Chelsea’s goals would come from. With Reece James, arguably Europe’s best right wingback, consigned to central defence, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek - a pedestrian midfielder at best - unable to create any width, Chelsea’s notoriously anaemic attack had little supply. On the left, Ben Chilwell, James’ opposite number and just as impactful, was forced into spending more time defending that attacking. It all pointed to the same thing: Chelsea hadn’t been set up right.

Graham Potter never felt right as a Chelsea manager, but fans were prepared to give him a chance, stoically supporting the rare opportunity of an Englishman in the dugout. But before our eyes, the fanbase began to erode, and the #potterout tweets proliferated. On Saturday, the 50% of supporters yet to turn on him, did. The atmosphere at full time, with large swathes of empty seats visible, was notably sulphurous. Last night’s club statement was inevitable. 

Unlike many, however, I held back from the Graham Potter pile-on that built up in the wake of his appointment after Thomas Tuchel was abruptly dismissed in September. Todd Boehly and his co-owners had signalled that their £4.25 billion takeover would herald a period of stability, a commodity missing during the turbulent Roman Abramovich era, when managers came and went like trains at Clapham Junction. Potter had never achieved anything at a so-called ‘elite’ club, but he’d built Brighton & Hove Albion into a decent side and on relatively meagre means, too. From one angle, however, he looked like the good soldier, a nice bloke who would drive the new owners’ long-term “project”, whatever that was. 

The conclusion now is that long-term thinking is fairly pointless in the Premier League, when judgement is meted out on day-to-day results. Even if Boehly and co-controlling owner Behdad Eghbali were prepared to stick with the Englishman, the noise around him wouldn’t go away.  In the end, sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Lawrence Stewart pushed for an immediate change and got it.

In fairness, the decision put Potter out of his misery. In February he spoke about the unforgivable abuse his family had received in the wake of Chelsea’s poor performances - many of which weren’t his fault as injuries began to rack up just as a new squad, which hadn’t had the benefit of a proper pre-season, toiled. In further mitigation, the spending spree of close to £600 million that the Boehly-Clearlake Capital went on in two transfer windows, bloated the squad with more expensive players than even José Mourinho would have known what to do with, adding unbelievable pressure to Potter who found himself charting new and decidedly richer professional waters.

“You have to accept that when the results are what they are, you accept criticism and it should come,” Potter reflected in February. “But that isn’t to say it’s easy at all. Your family life suffers, your mental heath suffers, and your personality suffers. It’s hard.” That may have won him some deserved sympathy, but the results continued to be poor. “Clearly it is a process of how to get our message across better. How can we structure things in a way to help the players? Because that is what we are here for. When results aren’t good, you have to accept that we haven’t done it well enough.”

In every post-match interview and pre-match press conference, Potter would pursue the same passive defence: “I feel the support of the players, I feel the support of everyone here,” he said after being beaten 2-0 by a managerless Tottenham (Antonio Conte being absent due to gallbladder surgery). “I understand the frustrations externally but among the players it is a desire for us all to do better and that is the pleasing thing. The results haven’t been good but we are still there fighting for each other.”

If I was writing his lines, as a PR pro, I’d probably be having him say the same thing. The reality, however, on the pitch was a whole lot different. Even if the intent was there, the execution wasn’t. Potter’s 31 games in charge - which included 11 defeats, 12 wins and eight draws - resulted in Chelsea’s worst managerial record in the Premier League era, which began with a nominal revival in the early 1990s as the late Matthew Harding’s investments brought a touch of glamour to the club, including a new stand, and players like Ruud Gullit, Gianluca Vialli and Gianfranco Zola.

But nothing is ever simple at Chelsea. BT Sport’s brilliant recent documentary Pound Land - The Battle Of The Bridge recounted the fractious rivalry between Harding and chairman Ken Bates who, himself, had led a valiant effort to save Stamford Bridge from being turned into flats. Bates had bought the club at the end of an equally turbulent period, when the club faced bankruptcy as a result of over-extending itself by building the Bridge’s East Stand (where I’ve sat for the last 20-plus years) on the back of the club’s successes in the early 1970s. The late ’70s and much of the ’80s were marked by relegations, financial ruin and the scourge of hooliganism. 

The arrival of ‘name’ players in the 1990s commenced a period of increasing success that ultimately led to Roman Abramovich buying the club in 2003, and leading to 20 titles over the course of his 19 years’ ownership. We had literally never had it so good. But if the near-bankruptcy of the ’70s, and the fight to keep Chelsea at Stamford Bridge were existential threats, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year genuinely took the club to the abyss. The Government’s sanctioning of Abramovich forced the sale that brought the Boehly-Clearlake consortium to the rescue. 

The last ten months since the takeover must be put into some context. That Potter leaves Chelsea with such a disappointing record is unfortunate, but let’s face it - at least he had a Chelsea to be fired from. 

That notwithstanding, however, questions should quite rightly be asked about the club strategy since the takeover, particularly of the £600 million in player acquisitions that seemed more scattergun than purposeful, and whether Potter was ever the right manager to take charge of them. 

“We have the highest degree of respect for Graham as a coach and as a person,” Boehly and Eghbali said in a statement last night. ”He has always conducted himself with professionalism and integrity and we are all disappointed in this outcome.“ As they should be.

Of course, no one will ever know whether Thomas Tuchel, whose firing remains shrouded in suggestions of backroom disagreements (he wasn’t exactly a compliant employee at Paris Saint-Germain…) would have fared better, but given what he delivered since replacing Frank Lampard in January 2021, taking the team on to win the Champions League itself, makes one wonder whether his departure was really for the best. And if it was, why was Potter, a manager seen as the driver of a decent Ford Focus, given the keys to a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport like Chelsea? Potter will have his reasons for his team selections, but for the paying fans, they’ve often been hard to fathom. And if they’re hard for the crowd to comprehend, it’s likely that they’d be difficult for the players too. 

Chelsea’s next manager will have his work cut out. He’ll be inheriting a lop-sided squad that should be challenging for titles but, barring an incomprehensible miracle in Europe, will next season be focused solely on domestic silverware. A much-needed clear-out this summer, partly to balance the books for Financial Fair Play, might allow that new head coach to start from scratch, with a proper pre-season and a blueprint of how to go about things. In some respects, that clear-out began last night, with Graham Potter’s departure. The onus is on Boehly and Eghbali to choose his successor with a little more understanding of the task he’ll have to deliver on.

Forget Blue Monday, it’s Blue Sunday I’m worrying about

© Simon Poulter 2023

The ascent to the seat I’ve occupied at Stamford Bridge for 26 years is an arduous one, but the view is worth it once you get up there. The decision I made in 1997 with a mate of mine to take out season tickets in the East Stand Upper section, just below the main commentary box, was a sound one. Like the media who sit a few rows behind us, we have the perfect vantage point, sitting just to one side of the centre line. 

The one downside - well, increasing downside - is that it requires a lung-busting hike up several knee replacement-inducing sets of stairs dating back to the late 1970s when the East Stand was built. It is now the oldest stand in the stadium, and constructed at tremendous cost to the pre-Abramovich (and pre-Ken Bates) Chelsea Football Club, which was almost bankrupted by the venture. However, I’m not as young as I was in 1997. But there is, still, a latent desire to make that climb “every other Saturday” (or whenever the Premier League and its television partners deem games should be played). Right now, though, it feels like some form of ritualised torture.

Chelsea are in crisis. There is no other way of looking at it. Perhaps the mist of optimism veiled the view in my last post on the club’s fortunes, but since then, I’ve witnessed back-to-back defeats to Manchester City and the God-awful nightmare that was last Thursday’s away fixture to Fulham (in which loanee João Félix made a genuinely refreshing debut, only to then get red carded, and fellow loan player Denis Zaharia - one of the other rare bright spots in the squad - withdrew through injury. Chelsea lost 2-1 to the noisy neighbours).

Picture: Chelsea FC

I’ve never been one to join sack-the-manager pile-ons, especially as high head coach turnover at this football club has only ever been an irritating carrot-and-stick incentive to successors, but you have to question whether Graham Potter is, now, the man to dig Chelsea out of the hole they’re in. It’s not, though, his fault. The trouble is, it rarely is the manager’s. 

For too long, Chelsea bosses have borne the brunt for players with too much power, too much money and too little incentive to produce their best for the team. Potter, though, is yet to display the ability, charisma and sheer strength of personality to turn this predicament around. Something needs to happen to move Chelsea out of the mid-table moribundity they’re settling into, despite the vast outlay by the club’s new owners since taking over last summer.

On that front, clearly, Potter cannot be blamed for players like Kalidou Koulibaly and Marc Cucurella being hopelessly at the wrong club (even if the latter played for Potter at Brighton). Nor can he be blamed for the serial underperformer that is Hakim Zyech, or the enigma that is Kai Havertz, who has now laboured for too long leading the line. It wasn’t Potter, either, who bought Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, when anyone else would have steered well clear of the Gabonese skipper, ingloriously ejected by an Arsenal at a time when they could least afford to lose him, but clearly had to. 

Picture: Chelsea FC

What, too, has Jorginho really contributed to the midfield, in seasons-numerous? Nowhere near his reputation, that’s for sure. And Kepa, bought for a £72 million record goalkeeping transfer fee, then usurped by Edouard Mendy because of poor performance, to be restored to the team only to regress back into the indifferent form. And, lastly, there is dear old César Azpilicueta, the club captain. He tries his best, but at 33, has legs that just can’t keep up. Yes, it’s the manager’s job to get the best out of these players, but you’d have to argue that even a coach as sainted as Pep Guardiola can’t work miracles.

The Fulham game highlighted a malaise that has beset Chelsea, in one form or another, for some time: spirit. On paper, the club isn’t bereft of talent but it does lack leadership. That’s not just down to Azpiliqueta or the bench, but highly rewarded players who, when their backs are up against the wall, apply some gumption. Easy to say, I know, but it seems equally easy to just not put in a shift, drive home to that mansion in Oxshott in the custom-fit 150-grand G-Wagon, and fire up a cigar with that week’s wad of notes.

According to the Daily Telegraph, however, change is coming. It may not be immediate, but the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital consortium that owns Chelsea is planning to drain the swamp, and clear out players who’ve been allowed to build up in the squad over successive transfer windows, but not perform. Hopefully, even, one or two known to have undermined management authority. 

Against the prevailing mood from the terraces, Potter’s job is safe for now (and it was noted that some fans outside Craven Cottage on Thursday night were making it plain that the squad is the problem, not the head coach). I’m still not 100% convinced that Potter is the man for the job, but in fairness, he may not have been given a chance - even this far into the season. Injuries, too, have been punishing - something no manager can mitigate, whatever his strategic and tactical tools. 

A squad refresh could certainly help, with the Telegraph suggesting that a new wage structure might be introduced to reset an inconsistent spend during the Abramovich era. The thinking might be to put players on more or less the same wages for their age and experience, and build new and lucrative causes into their bonus agreements for meeting individual and team objectives. An interesting development if so.

That, though, is for the future. Potter’s problem, however, is here and now. The mood tomorrow afternoon at Stamford Bridge for the fixture against Crystal Palace is likely to be sulphurous. And if it isn’t, it will still be a struggle to get a raise out of even the most boisterous mobs of the Matthew Harding end. 

Potter needs results to change the mood, which makes the Palace game a must-win. The numbers don’t lie - Chelsea are currently in their worst run of form since 1996 and lie 10th in the Premier League, well off the pace for Champions League requalification. Exits in both the FA and League cups to Manchester City means that their only hope of silverware this season is the Champions League itself, which seems only a distant prospect to the most optimistic of supporters.

With the transfer window still open, there is talk of yet more signings to address the injury crisis, with PSV Eindhoven’s Noni Madueke along with Borussia Monchengladbach’s Marcus Thuram being considered to inject some urgency into an otherwise anaemic Chelsea attack, one in which even the lively Mason Mount has looked lethargic. But with each new name linked to the club, the belief is that it is committing the same mistakes they’ve made in successive seasons - buying more players without a plan of what they can do and where they will fit. 

As I wrote in my last post on this subject, last summer’s splurge on £170 million-worth of defenders has so far looked downright foolish, when considering the performances of Cucurella and Koulibaly, and the long-term injury of Wes Fofana, who barely played for the club before heading to the treatment centre.

Picture: Chelsea FC

For Potter, even the most tribal, antagonistic observer of football must show some sympathy. It’s not, though, what he wants: “I can’t sit here and say that things are improving when the results are like they are,” he said during his press conference yesterday. “We do know more about the club, more about the players, a lot more about what we need to get the club back to where it could be, where it should be. But at the moment, it’s not there. Lots of things have happened over a period of time that manifests itself into the situation. We have to make sure we act well going forward, but at the moment it’s tough to see any light, it’s tough to see any green shoots because we’re still suffering from defeats.”

The injuries - both existing and new - have felt like the feet being dragged from beneath him, especially the loss of Reece James on his return to the first team against Nottingham Forest. “It’s almost like, ‘Back to the drawing board’,” Potter said of all the injuries that continue to rack up. “It felt like taking one step, like you’re making progress watching João Félix, then all of a sudden, whoosh, he’s not here for three matches. That’s where we’ve been.”

The pressure on Potter for tomorrow’s Palace game is palpable, but then his opposite number, Patrick Viera, is looking at a run of four defeats out of five. A win over could move them level with Chelsea on points. Even if Potter’s job is not immediately at stake, psychologically, a lot is. One win from eight for a club with Chelsea’s most recent history is not only bad, it’s hard to actually remember when it was last quite so bad.

A postscript to this is that the day after tomorrow is ‘Blue Monday’, so named as it sits furthest between paydays, post-Christmas credit card statements are arriving and (of particular pain for me), HMRC self-assessment tax bills are due. On top of that, Britain seems to be stuck in a permanent weather pattern of wind and rain. T-Bone Walker might have sung “They call it Stormy Monday, but Tuesday is just as bad“, but potentially, Sunday could be much, much worse.

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.