Hazard warning

When I began my blogging career eight years ago I didn’t give much thought to what I’d write about. The first post just happened to be about football - because I was angry - but when I christened the blog What Would David Bowie Do?, most assumed it would have a musical connection. I now realise that, over the last few weeks, it has been exclusively about football. But, then, can you blame me when there have been such sumptuous pickings from the beautiful game to blog about?

Today, my friends, will be no different. Matters musical can and will wait. Because - and I know the World Cup confetti has barely been Hoovered up, but things move quickly - Chelsea burst back into my consciousness at the end of last week with, finally, the firing of Antonio Conte and...er...finally, the hiring of Maurizio Sarri. Sarri appeared yesterday in his first interview for Chelsea's in-house TV channel and gave an impressive, eloquent account of himself. Speaking in fluent English (a marked contrast to Conte at the start, although he worked hard to learn the language) Sarri set out his intent: "I think with one or two adjustments, we can try to play my football," he said, perhaps making reference to the entertaining style he employed at Napoli and which first drew Chelsea's attention to the former banker.

Quite what those adjustments will be remains to be seen, though the arrival of Italian midfielder Jorginho as part of the deal with Napoli that brought Sarri to Stamford Bridge, is surely only just the start. Juve's Daniele Rugani and Gonzalo Higuain are reportedly also on Sarri's shopping list, though both might be difficult to extract from the reigning Italian champions, even if they have just shelled out £105 million for Cristiano Ronaldo.

The bigger headache, however, for Sarri will be holding on to players, in particular, Eden Hazard, but also Thibaut Courtois, Willian and Gary Cahill (who, being over 30 and slipping behind Antonio Rudiger and, potentially, Rugani, is unlikely to get any more gametime under Sarri than he was getting from Conte). Willian grew increasingly frustrated last season - most notably in the FA Cup Final, when he was only brought off the bench in the 91st minute, having spent most of the game warming up on the touchline. Courtois, who has just one more season to run on his contract, has been hinting at a move back to Madrid for some time, largely due to his children still living there with their mother, Marta Domínguez, the goalkeeper's former partner.

But it is Hazard who poses the greatest challenge for Sarri and Chelsea. Having captained Belgium to third place in the World Cup, the club has given the mercurial midfielder three weeks off to recover - a generous amount of time and long enough to give plenty of thought as to what he might do next. At the weekend he hinted at what that could be, saying that "it might be time to discover something different" after six "wonderful years" at Chelsea. And, guess what? Ronaldo's move to Juve just created a vacancy on the left side of the attack at Real Madrid, the club Hazard referred to on Saturday as "my preferred destination". That may well be the case, but Madrid are apparently eyeing up either Neymar or Kylian Mbappe as first-choice targets.

For his part, Hazard is hardly agitating for a move. The affable Belgian has always been relaxed about his future (and the latest rumouring is nothing new). "It is not my decision, he told reporters on Saturday. "The club will decide. Now I just want to go on holidays and we will see what happens."

Nevertheless, now might be the time Hazard sees as perfect to fulfil his dream of winning the Champions League. He signed for Chelsea in June 2012, just after the club had won the European prize. With the club reduced to the Europa League next season, playing for the current European champions would be highly appealing. However, even if Madrid come in for him, Chelsea are expected to slap a whopping £200 million price tag on the Belgian, who still has two years to run on his current contract.

A further question is, can Chelsea afford to lose him? Hazard is, without doubt, the best player on their books. I would even argue that, on his day, he's the best player in the Premier League. That's an asset any club would be reluctant to give up. But having helped Chelsea to two Premier League titles, the FA Cup, League Cup and Europa League, at 27 the club has certainly had the best out of him, and could be tempted to cash in. Even if Madrid is unlikely to spend anything like what Chelsea want for Hazard, he would certainly not go cheaply, which would raise decent funds for some of the names on Sarri's list.

It would be a wrench to see the charismatic Belgian go, but maybe the time is right. Better now while he is relatively relaxed about both his relationship with Chelsea and his future, rather than when he is agitated and demotivated, as Diego Costa was when he was eventually released to Atlético Madrid. Under Conte last season, Hazard continued to demonstrate his worth, week in, week out, unlocking defences like no other and winning critical spot kicks, as he did in the FA Cup Final in May, an otherwise dire affair in which the only thing separating Chelsea and Manchester United was Hazard's penalty.

Sarri promises a fresh start and a new approach, which may be enriched by new signings that could also compensate for Hazard's potential departure. Jorginho - while no direct replacement - is certainly one of the most coveted creative midfielders in Europe (his signing was a major blow to Pep Guardiola, who'd earmarked him as a replacement for Yaya Touré at Manchester City). That said, Hazard could be a player whom Sarri would want to build his team around, even with the acquisition of his 'own' players.

Despite maintaining that his future will be up to Chelsea's to decide, much depends on the player himself. Chelsea fans are somewhat sanguine about Hazard's future. Knowing that nothing in football lasts forever, some could even be forgiven for thinking that it's amazing he's lasted as long as he has in West London, given all the comparisons to Messi and Ronaldo. "He is a player who has maturity and a lot of leadership," said his Belgium national team boss, Roberto Martinez in an interview with Spanish radio. "Hazard could carry a new project anywhere in the world. He is at the best moment of his career. He could fit in any team in the world." Over the next three weeks we will find out whether that team continues to be Chelsea or not.

Meh...it's finally the end of the season

There’s a small but unlikely chance that, over the next 48 hours, corporate IT departments might see an uptick of calls from employees whose F5 buttons have become exhausted on their company-provided computers. Then again, they might not. My lack of conviction on this theory is down to one simple fact: if Chelsea Football Club does part company with Antonio Conte, no one will be the least bit surprised, making it unlikely that there will be much browser refreshing going on at all.

Surely, Conte is on his way out, despite winning the Premier League title in his first season at the club and, now, the FA Cup in his second? Well, yes, but... Chelsea's football board will meet sometime over the next two days to discuss the Italian's future (presumably Roman Abramovich will join by conference call, given his suspect visa issues...). However, things aren't straight forward: even if Conte has seemingly been talking himself out of a job for most of the season - with his constant niggling over squad strength along with some dismal team performances - he is, today, still in post with another full season to run on his current contract. Secondly, although Chelsea have changed the compensation policy for sacked managers (which was getting ridiculous, given the attrition rate), Conte would take away a reported £9 million should he be fired. Assuming that his coterie of assistant coaches would also receive payoffs, Chelsea are believed to be reluctant to sanction another payoff, especially when it's clear - by the scale, or lack of, outlay on new players - the club has cut back on the lavishness that defined the early Abramovich years.

Chelsea managers appear only to last as long as either their perceived effectiveness, or their apparent compliance. Conte has probably exhausted both. Even after Saturday's FA Cup Final triumph over Manchester United, the he has still been defiant towards his employer: "When you decide to take a coach like me, you must know who you are taking, who you are charging for this job," Conte said, once again seemingly starting a fight with no one but himself. "I cannot change my personality. I cannot change my idea of football. Today was the only way to lift a trophy. If you want to change, then we can change our idea, but you must change many players," another dig at the club's apparent lack of player investment, a frustration for Conte that appeared to begin as early as pre-season, and went on to be the undercurrent of his second season in charge.

Twitter/Chelsea FC

By everyone’s admission, this has been a disappointing season for Chelsea, for which the FA Cup - still one of the greatest trophies in football - provides some compensation. But only so much. The Premier League title was always going to be tough to reclaim - it just is - but the extraordinary acceleration by a Manchester City, now fully galvanised under Pep Guardiola, meant that an equally extraordinary effort would be required by Chelsea to keep pace. Throw in a sparkier Liverpool this term and a José Mourinho in his second season at Manchester United (usually the mid-point of his tenure at a club and therefore his most profitable), plus competition on four fronts including a return to the Champions League, and the challenge for Conte and his team couldn’t have been bigger. Saturday’s result at Wembley not withstanding, Chelsea simply didn’t rise to the challenge.

Granted, this season's fifth place Premier League finish is clearly better than the 2015-16 disaster, which could have been a lot worse than the 10th place Chelsea managed to salvage in the end. But, still, there has been too much history repeating itself from that title defence this season, in particular, in the way Conte's frustrations with his bosses have been picked up on by his players. When his shoulders have dropped, so have his players', though nowhere as bad as that miserable period between August and December 2015 when Mourinho flew Chelsea into a canyon of negativity and "palpable discord" developed between coach and team. Conte is, by general comparison to Mourinho, a considerably more chipper individual, but his constant scratching at the open wound between him and his board could prove to be a fatal mistake. Not winning things because you don't have the players when the club has spent some £180 million on players is not a wise thing to complain about when you work for Abramovich. It's just strange that the Russian hasn't pulled the trigger already, after the dismal run of games in January and February, or even after the final Premier League game of the season, a 3-0 humiliation away to Newcastle.

It's been noticeable that Chelsea have shied away from the money-no-object marquee signings that transformed the club from perennial underachievers pre-Roman to trophy hoarders since the Russian took over. That said, last summer's acquisitions of Álvaro Morata, Tiemoué Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater and Antonio Rüdiger carried some kind of industrial logic: Morata to lead the line as Diego Costa's replacement, Bakayoko to partner N'Golo Kante in central midfield (as they do for France) or Drinkwater to partner Kante (as they did for Leicester in their title-winning campaign). However, with the exception of Rudiger (who was outstanding on Saturday at Wembley), the most polite assessment you could give is that these players are still adapting to the Premier League, the club, or both. After an initial show of goalscoring prowess, Morata ended the season with just 11 goals; Bakayoko was, at times, an embarrassment (especially against Watford, getting sent off to the relief of everyone); Drinkwater made just 12 appearances, seven as a substitute. More arrived in the winter window, with Olivier Giroud joining from Arsenal and Ross Barkley from Everton. While Giroud has quickly become a fans' favourite, Barkley has become a forgotten man. Even the sight of him warming up at Wembley gave the air of a peripheral player, rather than the great English hope many had billed him as. Questions, quite rightly, have been asked as to not only who the club is buying, but by what criterion players are being bought. And, with technical director Michael Emenalo no longer at the club, who is making those decisions.

Eden Hazard has hinted that a condition of him staying at Chelsea will be the quality of players they bring in over the summer. Even if he has blown hot and cold this season, Hazard has been the club's most outstanding player (demonstrated again on Saturday at Wembley). Some fans are resigned to the 27-year-old moving to Madrid, perhaps in the belief that we've had the best out of him, but he is still a player who makes the difference. If he goes, he needs replacing, like-for-like. Likewise Thibaut Courtois, who has been somewhat ambiguous about whether he'll be around beyond the summer. Again, on Saturday, he demonstrated what a top-drawer goalkeeper he is.

At the end of the 2017-18 season, and despite winning the FA Cup for the sixth time since 1997, there is a deeply unsettled vibe around Chelsea. We should be happy. We've won silverware, we're in Europe again next season (albeit the Europa League), and we could be Arsenal. We can't win the Premier League every year, but this season just didn't feel like Chelsea tried. Yes, there were impressive wins in August, September and into October, but there were also too many draws and defeats that suggested the mental strength just wasn't there. True, Chelsea had a decent run in the Champions League (for which the opportunity to see Lionel Messi in the flesh was one I'll savour for a long time). The FA Cup, too, has provided some satisfaction, but there have been too many laboured performances this season in which it was clear that Conte was either being deliberately obstinate to make a point, or simply had run out of ideas when things weren't going well. On this last item, there is some debate: at Wembley, the sight of Willian and Pedro in a permanent state of warming-up right in front of us was frustrating, and you could see the Brazilian, in particular, growing ever more anxious as the clock ticked down. These are not great signs of a warm relationship between a key player and his manager. On the other hand, you could argue that Conte stuck to a plan - defend at all costs - and knew what he was doing. The trophy he held aloft on Saturday evening might be testament to the fact that he did.

So here's the Chelsea board's dilemma: sack a man who has, regardless of how or when, produced silverware, almost on demand, or stick with him for the remainder of his contract, even if it is clear (and has been for some time) that the relationship with his players is less than perfect. And what if they do sack him, and bring in a Luis Enrique or Maurizio Sarri or another exotic-sounding careerist from La Liga or Serie A? Will that necessarily do any good? Would Enrique or Sarri deliver a title in his first season, such as Conte, Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and interim managers Roberto Di Matteo, Guus Hiddink and even the despised Rafa Benitez have done? And, to raise the thorny issue at the heart of Conte's frustrations, what about player investments - is the club prepared to spend big again this summer?

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Talking to other Chelsea fans on Saturday there is a state of resignation that Antonio Conte has gone as far as he can, that the FA Cup is a suitable reward for a job done, but that it is time for the club to move on again. Two seasons is not much, but Chelsea have seldom, in the modern era, been about building domains. When he bought the club, Abramovich envisaged turning Chelsea into AC Milan or one of the Spanish giants, playing exciting football in Europe every year with a squad of galácticos. That ambition has been, at least, partially realised over the last 14 years. However, entrance to Europe requires excellence in England, first, and before the club makes any decision on Conte's future it must first examine what happened this season in failing to make the Premier League Top 4. Manchester City were unstoppable, just as Chelsea had been the season before, but what kept Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool ahead of The Blues in the final reckoning, to keep them out of Champions League places?

Perhaps Chelsea thrive on change. Perhaps the club's strategy is that long-term managerial appointments are a recipe for complacency. We might never know. But if the mood of the terrace is to be heard, there is a sense of weariness towards Conte. Whether it has been the timing or lack of substitutions to inject life into otherwise stubborn performances, Conte has regularly demonstrated a 'I know best' obstinacy that, while true that he probably does, has not translated into something to get behind from the stands. And if we sense it, players like Hazard sense it, which means surely it's a problem that can only be solved one way...