Chelsea 0 vs. 1 Arsenal MW 15 - Not a review more of a ramble.
Chelsea as we knew it does not exist anymore.
Chelsea welcomed league leaders Arsenal to Stamford Bridge on Sunday and the Gunners left with three points after dominating the game. Chelsea were second best, devoid of passion and ideas and everyone was to blame. The team sits seventh in the table and have no wins in the last four games. A rude awakening and instead of doing a game review or player review I am going to talk about the situation and what I want and expect to happen over the next six months.
Firstly Chelsea as we knew it under Roman is over. Everything that was part of the Roman era is gone or is on the way out the good and bad. Roman himself is gone, Marina is gone, board members gone, and Tuchel is gone. The decline and rot had been festering away since 2017 but Tuchel managed to keep things respectable. The aura of Chelsea is gone and that was only being held up because Tuchel was here.
My hopes of a title challenge etc went out the door when Tuchel was sacked. When you take out the only world class member of the team and replace him with an up and coming manager who has done well but is yet to win anything then yes, naturally my expectations dropped. These are the same players Tuchel talked about after losing four nil to Arsenal in pre season and said that they need to go. Tuchel was great at setting out tactical plans for the big games and we used to dominate them but failed to score goals to win them. Over the last 18 months we beat Spurs thrice, lost twice to City, drew four times against Liverpool, won once against Arsenal and drew against United. Tuchel kept it respectable but once you sent him out you were just left with the underperforming players that cost numerous managers their jobs.
Tuchel is gone he isn’t coming back. He was not sacked because of results he was sacked because Boehly and him were not able to work together. That is what we have been told and that is what we will have to accept. The moment Boehly sacked Tuchel he became the main man. Boehly has made a gamble and now its on him to see it through. The only way I can respect Boehly as an owner is if he sticks by this decision and backs Potter, and continues to change the way Chelsea is run. I didn’t like the constant upheaval under Roman and I am not going to judge a new owner based on six months. As of now it looks like a mad decision but it is up to him to stick by it and back it.
Moving on to Potter now, there is a lot to say. Firstly Potter was brought in eight weeks ago once the transfer window was shut and with no planning what so ever. Initially we saw some exciting and fluid attacking patterns and even kept clean sheets. As the energy levels dropped we began to grind out results. The games against weaker opposition like Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb still showed exciting attacking patterns but of course we could not replicate that against in form teams like Brighton and Arsenal.
Brighton had a week to prepare for their game along with the narrative and history with Potter while Arsenal are the best team in the league and are in the third season with Arteta as their manager. Injuries are hurting every single team this season and Chelsea are no different. Kante, Reece, Chilwell, Fofana are all out. Koulibaly, and Kovacic are walking wounded. Each one of those players is a starter and someone Tuchel would have used as well. To throw in a manager with no pre-season into this storm is mad, you expect him to get across his ideas with limited training sessions and adjust to life at one of the biggest clubs in the world. I’m sorry I have nothing but sympathy for Potter.
He isn’t blameless though and something he needs to start doing is playing players based on merit. Broja needs to start games, Pulisic has had some decent cameos bring him in. Zakaria played well recently bring him in. Gallagher needs to be given a run of games bring in someone like Omari Hutchinson and give him some minutes, Lewis Hall etc. You have a talented academy use it. Fans will create noise regardless of the decision. If he plays the youth and Chelsea lose then fans will say he should have gone with experience and he’s out of his depth. If he plays the underperforming experienced players then he is also out of his depth. At the moment its a lose lose until results don’t change.
This winter World Cup is a pathetic idea but it is a good chance for Potter and everyone at the club to regroup. He has said that there will be a warm weather camp two weeks before the season resumes on boxing day. A lot of Chelsea players will be at the World Cup but they will start to filter back in once the group stage is over and the knockout rounds begin. This is a camp that Potter needs to use wisely. None of this weird pseudo camp that we had in the US in the summer but a proper one focused on getting Potter’s ideas across. A week after that the transfer window opens and we need to be quick out of the blocks. Midfielders have to be the priority and if we can get Nkunku to sign for us six months earlier than expected that would be great. Secondly players need to leave, Ziyech needs to be on his way out and some of the others need to be put on a six month notice especially in the forward areas. Figure out a proper back up to Reece James as well.
Football clubs go through peaks and troughs and Chelsea are in a trough right now. Boehly’s actions and backing of Potter will decide how long we are in this mess. This was always going to happen because Chelsea have not had a consistent elite mentality since 16/17. Since then top managers have papered over clueless recruitment and indecision to make it seem like Chelsea were still a consistent force. Great in cup tournaments but well short when it came to a 38 game season.
Boehly took out an elite driver who got the best out of a mediocre car and replaced him with a young and hungry driver who’s car is being built on the go. New parts are being brought in every single day but there are only two moments in an year where you can make key changes to the car. One of those moments is in January and then the summer and we take it from there.
Fans will feel disconnected, fans will feel frustrated. It’s the age of social media I don’t expect Twitter to be a very pleasant platform over the next few months and even longer. A lot of fans are in denial but the signs have been there since 2017 and that is that our players are not good enough and are recruitment has been clueless regardless of who has been the manager. Its been a tough year as a Chelsea fan we have been through a lot. Its fine to feel disconnected because it isn’t the club you singed up for. Everything has changed but the good thing is that goal remains the same and that is to win. It’s a different approach and while many don’t like it is something they will have to accept. The modern era belongs to clubs who back and believe in their managers and Chelsea’s approach under Abramovich had not paid dividends in the league for a long time.
We are no longer an elite team the curtains that Roman had put up since 2017 have been ripped off by Boehly to reveal the team for what it truly is. This will be a testing period for Chelsea fans and we probably will have to suffer more losses. We will get laughed at by others just like we laughed at people during their lulls. Is Potter the man to get Chelsea back to its heights? Only time will tell. Is Boehly the owner to get Chelsea consistently challenging for the title like City do? Only time will tell. What I do know is that six months in relation to Boehly and eight weeks with regards to Potter is way too short of a period for me to come to a conclusion.
Next up is a trip to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup which I don’t expect us to win. Our final game before the World Cup break is this weekend against Newcastle which I also don’t expect us to win. It could be a tough end to this first half of this season and then the real work has to begin.
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