Chelsea can learn from West Brom and Alan Pardew
By Travis Tyler
Alan Pardew has departed West Brom by “mutual consent”. Chelsea can learn from West Brom’s woes if they decide to split with Antonio Conte next season.
When West Brom’s season began, there was a sense amongst the fanbase that Tony Pulis had taken the club as far as they could go. Defensively, few teams were better. Safety was assured every season. But as soon as they hit the 40 point mark, they would fall apart.
So when they struggled to start the season, fans called for Pulis’ head. They believed they could go no further with defense-first football, especially seeing how Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp had brought attacking football to the forefront. Pulis was sacked after a bad run, with fans demanding an attack-minded manager.
This led them to Alan Pardew. As far as the revolving door of English managers goes, Pardew was the most attacking of the lot. He frees his teams of their shackles and sends them up the table. Then there is usually a massive drop off, leading to the sack. His time at West Brom skipped straight to the drop off, and he has now departed the club by “mutual consent.”
Chelsea can learn a valuable lesson from West Brom’s ordeal. West Brom had a defensively-minded manager in Pulis. Chelsea have a defense-first manager in Antonio Conte. West Brom went to an attacking manager to lift the burden off the club. Chelsea fans want an attacking “beautiful” brand of football to move the club forward.
The degrees of defense and attack are not the same but the idea is. Squads cannot easily flip a switch with a new manager. West Brom wanted to be free, but it is incredibly hard to take a squad built for defense and have them open up. Results changed little and, if anything, started to become worse. West Brom will now be relegated because they tried to run a marathon before they learned how to walk.
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When Chelsea fans call for the likes of Luis Enrique, Thomas Tuchel, Maurizio Sarri or any other yet to be rumored attacking manager, they must realize that it will not be as easy as it is in FIFA 18. There will be growing pains and the squad is not built for it at the moment.
Chelsea’s culture also does not easily allow for it. Since Jose Mourinho first came to Chelsea, he created a culture of defense first, attack fast, score but do not let them score. Every manager since then who has followed that culture has found success. The managers who deviated found life difficult.
Enrique, Tuchel and Sarri could find themselves in a similar situation at Stamford Bridge. And because Chelsea and the fanbase require immediate results, they will have little leeway to implement their preferred style if things are not going swimmingly.
Perhaps the best solution for Chelsea is to minimize the change until the squad is ready for that style of manager. A stop-gap manager, one who is somewhere in the middle between attack and defense, would give Chelsea a few transfer windows to rebuild the squad and prepare them for the style the fans crave.
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Or the club could give in to the desire of fans like West Brom did. There is a chance that such a radical change could work. But history has shown such radical changes are difficult for football clubs in the short term. And Chelsea are a short-term, results-now type of club.