Chelsea will never find a perfect time for anything

Many decisions Chelsea currently face are met with the refrain of “now is not the time”. There will never be a perfect time on some of these issues.

Football is immensely complicated. At its most base form, it is just 22 players on the field. But then there is the manager, philosophy, transfers, culture, youth, and countless other variables to account for at the same time.

Time is a particularly relevant one at Chelsea currently. The Blues face a transfer ban that they have yet to appeal. Frank Lampard is linked with just a year of managerial experience while Maurizio Sarri linked away with just a year of Chelsea experience. Many are saying that there is “a time for this” or “it is not the right time” on these issues. But the simple fact is that there is no such thing as a perfect time for anything in football because the variables are all interconnected.

Take the ban for instance. It appears that the current plan is to accept the ban in its current form and let it run its course. Many say the squad, minus Eden Hazard and with only the loan army to supplement, is not capable of competing without reinforcements.

That is a valid point but it also assumes that Chelsea will break from seasons of poor windows to have a good one. It also does not account for the loan army’s murky future if Chelsea can buy this summer, but not in January or next summer.

Frankly, the ban is a band-aid that will have to come off eventually. The when is academic. As it stands, Chelsea is already behind in this transfer window and appealing now would only keep the Blues behind their rivals and they would lose next summer as well. Neither now or later is ideal, but the band-aid still has to come off at some point. The board has opted to go ahead and get it over with.

Then there is the matter of Lampard. Sarri has been linked away to several Italian clubs and Lampard has been mentioned as his replacement. To that, most will say he is too inexperienced. Most commonly, they say give Lampard two or three years and he will be ready.

But managers do not improve significantly over time like players do. Take Eddie Howe or Sean Dyche for instance. Are they vastly improved from their first Premier League season to now? The answer is no. Managers do not improve massively with time; they improve with better resources or better staff.

And if Chelsea keeps waiting for the perfect time to appoint Lampard, it will never come. That is an issue most Premier League clubs have had when looking at managers from lower clubs. Only Tottenham, then stuck to the bottom of the top six (which really did not exist yet) took the chance on someone from a lower positioned side. It was not the right time for Mauricio Pochettino because it was never going to be.

Lampard may not be ready for Chelsea, this is true, but the Blues cannot wait until he is ready because they will never stop. The Blues cannot afford to wait for all the stars to align with the transfer ban so they are just accepting it. Perfect timing does not exist in football and waiting for it is merely an excuse of indecision.