On Sunday, Chelsea FC lost to Manchester City in a match that never even appeared close. The club will look very different next year.
At the beginning of this season, signs were positive. The club were defending champions of England and had somehow managed to start a miniature tactical revolution in England with their formation from the year before.
But now it is March, and Chelsea are almost certainly not going to qualify for next season’s Champions League. They still have not replaced their technical director, and Antonio Conte will be gone soon as well. Many of the star players will move clubs at season’s end, and Chelsea will be a shell of the team that they are now.
The question is if that is for the best.
Whether or not it is the correct thing to do, Chelsea will likely fire Antonio Conte. Despite the fact he had Chelsea punch wildly above their weight last season, they have come back down to earth. He will take the blame for a poorly assembled and miserly-built squad. The obvious foolishness of the club basing their policies off of Arsenal – despite the north Londoners’ lack of silverware in a decade – has made things very difficult for the Blues.
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This all started in the third year of Jose Mourinho’s second spell, the year Chelsea floundered to an embarrassing 10th place finish. Conte was able to spark life into that corpse of a squad for a season. But in the years in which Chelsea needed organizational commitment and unity , the squad has fallen back to form.
My genuine theory is this squad is simply not very good. Built by Michael Emenalo over the past several years, it is finally the team he dreamed up with his faux-Moneyball system. The success of 2012 and much of the intervening period had mainly been remnants of the team Mourinho originally built in the mid-2000s.
They are finally without a single holdover of that original squad. This Chelsea side lack identity, soul and spirit. Chelsea will not be able to forge another decade-long team if they continue to change.
From 2002-2015 Chelsea had not missed the Champions League. Now, with different managers but this same group of players, they have missed it twice in three years. Yet Chelsea will continue this perpetual cycle of ineptitude by firing the blameless and empowering the guilty.
Be it ignorance, blindness, indifference or wanton foolishness the fault is very obvious. When Chelsea fire Conte they will have wasted two of the best managers in Europe on a squad that does not deserve them, and despite both managers’ acknowledgment that the club refused to ably invest in their tenure.
It is astounding how much of this season has been wasted on contractual discussions and negotiations when none of those are deserved. Thibaut Courtois wants a raise? To be the highest paid goalkeeper in Europe? That’s a joke. He is not even the best goalkeeper in his league. David De Gea has shown just how much a goalkeeper alone can elevate a pedestrian side.
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Eden Hazard wants to play for Real Madrid? He’s proven to be no better than any of the players they have. When Gareth Bale left for Real Madrid he had Tottenham pushing teams for the title on the back of his work. Cristiano Ronaldo inspired Manchester United to three titles in a row.
Eden Hazard can’t even breathe in that room at this point. We, I, have been wrong about him.
The good news is Chelsea will have the chance to build again soon. Roman Abramovich will fire Conte, Courtois will leave and so will Hazard. There will likely be at least 2-3 other departures as well. A new manager will come in, only this time without the complicating factor of Michael Emenalo to build a new squad.
I have wasted a great many minutes and column inches describing how Chelsea should do this. They should keep Conte and let him craft an image for the club. After all, he studied in one of the highest schools of football ever during his time at Juventus with Marcello Lippi and Carlo Ancelotti. Sadly, though, Chelsea will not do this. No need to talk about it anymore.
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This Chelsea team have proven how wonderful, astute and creative managers both Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte are. Let us hope the person Chelsea hire next is as good as either of them. Then, perhaps, this Chelsea will rise from the ashes rather than being food for the vultures.