Chelsea display an admirable ability to soldier on even in dark times. The downside of that fortitude is how it allowed them to drift further from excellence than at any point in perhaps 20 years.
I would be remiss not to say anything, knowing how evil triumphs only when good people do nothing. Something must be said. To the people who use football and Chelsea Football Club matches as excuses to air your pathetic, gross and misplaced bigoted views: it is fossils like you that are the problem with the world. Not only do you have no place in football but you have no place on this planet. If you have an issue with this, I’m not hiding from you depraved, degenerate, embarrassing and gross animals. Chelsea Football Club is a wonderful thing and you have no place here.
My sincerest apologies to those of you upstanding people who needn’t have heard that.
Now on to business.
Chelsea again managed to make a hash out of something that should have been easier than it was. They allowed Slavia Prague back into the game earlier in the week, the sort of thing that we want to gloss over because of the win and celebrate a trip to the Europa League semi-finals.
Slavia Prague aren’t a bad football side – they beat Sevilla quite dramatically to reach Chelsea in the quarterfinals. Still, with no disrespect, Slavia Prague aren’t great. They’re not even close to the level Chelsea should be at, and we should be celebrating this win as if it’s normal and expected. Chelsea are meant to be in the Champions League. They’re meant to be mentioned among the favorites for it and comfortably in the top four in the Premier League. Yet they remain distracted, and we are celebrating what should never have been in doubt..
Since the team is able to soldier on, bleeding and wounded, the fundamental issues ruining this football side are glossed over.
For instance, where is the leadership? How not one person in the side simply grabbed their teammates and shouted them into order against Slavia Prague is absurd. Those are the things that any of Didier Drogba, John Terry or Frank Lampard used to do without the manager even needing to mention it.
Chelsea don’t have any leaders, but even more so, they are bereft of talent. Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante are the only world class players in the side. One of them already has one foot out the door, and the other is misused and mistreated. At Manchester United a more successful manager (Jose Mourinho) was fired for his similar discrediting and mistreatment of a player less talented than N’Golo Kante (Paul Pogba).
Not a single other player at Chelsea who isn’t a youth player really has a great case for wearing the shirt.
Chelsea have painted over cracks for so long there’s nothing left of substance. There’s fundamentally no talent, no spirit and no plan. Chelsea need major changes all over, but because they continue to soldier on with the baseline level of success, they don’t make those moves. And to make the situation even more insane, Chelsea could somehow not even be allowed to make changes because of a transfer ban.
When Eden Hazard leaves this summer Chelsea should save their money. They should get as much as they can for him, even if it means accepting a payment plan of three installments of £40 million over the next three windows instead of a lump sum. That’s OK, so long as it increases the money Chelsea earn. Chelsea won’t need to spend much more than they already spent in the needless addition of American international Christian Pulisic this summer. Even if they were going to try and buy more players there’s not a single player worth having who would likely want to sign.
The next thing Chelsea should then do is simply return to basics. They need to learn how to grind out results again and win matches without flash or flare. They need to beat teams worse than Slavia Prague, Everton or Wolves 1-0 again, but this time comfortably. If they win only with sweat and blood, that’s fine.
Chelsea have spent so long chasing the frivolous parts of football they have forgotten the basics. Crucially, clubs who are lucky enough to enjoy those frills never would. Barcelona, for example, would never make the sort of pathetic decisions Chelsea seem to make time and time again. That is why Chelsea will never get to that level on their current path.
A few years of suffering like Manchester United had under Sir Alex Ferguson at first or Liverpool did under Jurgen Klopp is what Chelsea need most. They should use that time to weed out the problems and collect their money. They should lie in wait while they build the spine the current team lacks.
The only unanswered question is whether Maurizio Sarri can keep his job while Chelsea do this. There’s not a simple answer. I have worries about it, but I worry even more so about the principle that it’s easier to fire a boss than replace him. There’s not one manager in the world at the moment who should take this job. If they did, I would suspect they weren’t as smart as I’d thought.
Perhaps an appointment like Steve Holland or Adi Viveash would be ideal. But as one of Chelsea’s biggest issues is players simply not listening to the manager because they know they need only endure 18 months, I’m not sure a firing is the best solution anyway.
Maybe it’s as simple as actually appointing club legends and football people like Ajax did with Edwin Van Der Sar. Is Petr Cech equally perfect? I think he could be.
That, though, is for next week. Chelsea will not run out of problems to solve by then. We can all agree on – and I can guarantee – that.