Chelsea Tactics and Transfers: Hudson-Odoi, Loftus-Cheek injuries say it all

In the matter of but a few weeks the two brightest parts of Chelsea’s successful and yet somehow still dark campaign were cut down with two cruel and likely career-altering injuries.

What no one wants to say but we are probably all thinking is: are Chelsea’s two brightest young hopes now forever damaged by the injuries they sustained this season?

Achilles injuries are hard to recover from. Everyone in football likes to cite David Beckham, who tore his Achilles and came back to play at a professional level. Beckham, though, was older and played in Major League Soccer after his injury. The expectations for an older and injured David Beckham were slightly different than those for Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Callum Hudson-Odoi.

Loftus-Cheek was expected to be a game-changing central midfielder in the mould of Michael Ballack. He’s the reason Chelsea’s season can even be counted as successful. The only reason many matches towards the end of the season turned into wins instead of dour and boring draws were because of Loftus-Cheek’s incredible guile and initiative. One can only hope for the best and that he’s able to return to that level.

Hudson-Odoi, on the other hand, is bested at his age by at most two players: Kylian Mbappe and Jadon Sancho. No one else of such a young age is expected to be better or carries a greater weight of expectations.

His injury, though we learned later was only a partial tear, is saddening because it is specifically some of his physical gifts that make him so dangerous. His speed, reflexes and touch are but a few of the God-given gifts he has been blessed with.

The good news is both players are young and age is a key factor in their ability to come back to full strength. I, as well as many of you, wish them nothing but the best in their recoveries – not just as men and footballers, but people.

That all addressed, let’s have a discussion on a more frank basis now, shall we?

What in the name of seven kinds of Holy Christ is going on at Chelsea Football Club that we don’t have some sort of answer for this? Hudson-Odoi walked himself off the pitch with an Achilles tear. Loftus-Cheek did the same thing.  For a multimillion pound football club, are Chelsea now skimping on medical staff? Is that the sort of thing they do now? How were these injuries not assessed and then these players carried off the pitch properly?

Second, though these things could have been coincidence and the medical staff generally have a wonderful record, what is going on in training? Two of Chelsea’s youngest and most fit players go down with the same injury within weeks of each other and nobody questions the coaches’ fitness regime?

It’s only natural, isn’t it? When the entire Liverpool side seemed to be hamstrung by their hamstrings (you’re welcome) people began to question Jurgen Klopp. When Arsenal suffered injury after injury people questioned Arsene Wenger. It’s what you’re supposed to do.

These things don’t just happen. Remember when my colleague Travis Tyler wrote an article about Maurizio Sarri removing weight training from the regime following the departure of (the one true great) Antonio Conte?

This is what happens.  One of the benefits of weight training is injury prevention. Now we’ve had two serious injuries that without a doubt impact the future of this club.

Callum Hudson-Odoi’s potential is so high that just the hope of it singlehandedly lessens the blow of the soon-to-depart Eden Hazard. Ruben Loftus-Cheek was and is a jewel. Both of them have been wasted.

Much like Chelsea’s year has been wasted. Wasted on stubbornness. Wasted on indecision. Wasted on childishness and wasted on attitudinal rubbish.

Chelsea could be a perfect football club and they make everything overly complicated. They are in a wonderful part of London and have one of the richest football histories in the world. Many players end up at Chelsea as opposed to one of the Northern sides simply because of that. Chelsea have the best youth setup in the division and yet somehow choose not to play them. Can you conceive of the mind of man who would rather choose old grizzled traitors who are literally best known for their treachery over young bright-eyed stars prepared to do anything to prove themselves? I thought I couldn’t, and then I looked at Chelsea 2018/19.

Why must it always be so complicated? They couldn’t just get a manager known for winning and then support him and let him do his job, could they? They needed the philosopher and yet chose not to support him anyway. Naturally, they couldn’t just exercise normally like a normal team. They had to stop strength training because it affected the way the coach thought of the game.

Chelsea have everything going for them and yet find ways to destroy the purity of the game with their insincere and ridiculous approach to the game and their supporters. It makes sense that the pure, unadulterated joy and pride of watching Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Callum Hudson-Odoi in our shirts was cut away from us when they were stricken down.

Chelsea have, in their way, managed to bury the misery of this year – and I do mean misery in every sense of the word – by finishing third and reading the Europa League final.

They didn’t win their way to third – other teams lost more. By the way, one of those had the distraction of reaching a historic Champions League final while running their club perfectly from a grassroots level.

Then the club certainly didn’t arrange to get supporters to Baku, either. Yes, it’s absurd that the match is that far away, but could the club not charter planes for supporters and created a travel package? Could they not arrange coach transport? It wouldn’t be ideal, but there’s a lot worse than a long bus ride singing with your mates.

Nope, they can play a non-competitive game in the United States two weeks before the final leaving a star injured FOR A YEAR, but get their own supporters to a competitive fixture for a title? No chance, they’d rather return 6,000 tickets.

All that is good about football – what I and many cherish about this club and this game – have been missing at Chelsea FC this year.  Not much of it can or should even be changed immediately, but they must look at themselves and realize what a true fundamental failure so much of this has been. No matter the statistics and trophies at the end of this season, Chelsea should know that, this year, they have taken football, something that is a joy, and turned it into a hemorrhaging, painful weekly wound.

Shame. They should all be bathing in it. Yet the reason for our issues is that we know very well they aren’t at all.