Chelsea: Sack rumours hint at a new definition of minimum standards

Chelsea are in good company among Europe’s top clubs in their search for a new manager despite nominally reaching their objectives. Perhaps these clubs are realizing the minimum concrete bottom line is neither proof of nor foundation for success.

If Chelsea sack Maurizio Sarri this summer, he will probably not be unemployed for long. Sarri has already been linked to Juventus and AS Roma, with some reports having talks with Juventus progressing to where they and Chelsea are now simply negotiating Sarri’s departure fee. Another rumour has Pep Guardiola atop Juventus’ list, but that hardly guarantees Sarri’s stay. Under just about every scenario, this sacking will be less painful, contentious and costly than the last.

In addition to Juventus and Roma, Inter Milan and AC Milan are both seeking new managers. Ex-Blues Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte figure into those rumour mills. Elsewhere in the top five leagues, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona could all be refilling their hot seat this summer.

For four of these teams – Juventus, Bayern, PSG and Barcelona – the elephant in the room is the Champions League.

The first three of those are collecting domestic titles as if they were trinkets. Borussia Dortmund pushed Bayern to the wire, but Bayern still won their seventh straight Bundesliga. Juventus won their eighth consecutive Serie A, while PSG lost only one league match between the start of the season and mid-April en route to their sixth straight title.

Barcelona defended their La Liga title, and – like the others – once again crashed out of the Champions League.

These four teams have been expensively assembled for the specific purpose of winning the Champions League. Only one of them – Barcelona – really has to compete for domestic titles, and this was their year to take advantage of Real Madrid’s early disarray and midseason managerial change. Barcelona and Juventus, in particular, also have to consider their aging squads as they feel a growing urgency to win the Champions League before needing a thorough rebuild.

However, even without a Champions League title, their seasons were hardly failures. If winning the league is an unusually high minimum standard of success, they met that standard.

Inter Milan, AC Milan and AS Roma also did what they set out to do back in August. They will all be in Europe next season: Inter and Milan are in a three-way battle for two Champions League places, and Roma will at least be in the Europa League, with a freakish chance remaining of making the Champions League.

Chelsea are in a similar spot. They finished third in the Premier League, ensuring a return to the Champions League. They reached the finals of the Carabao Cup and Europa League, and could still bring home the latter trophy.

Even so, this may not be enough justification to keep Maurizio Sarri.

On paper, each of these teams are searching for a new manager despite meeting all but the most difficult objectives. By any standards, including their own, their seasons were successful. They may not have been as successful as they hoped, but no club at any time has set the Champions League as a minimum: it is always the peak.

Meanwhile, two managers who have not yet won the Champions League – including one who has not won anything – have barely been mentioned in any of these sack rumours: Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino. If anything, Liverpool and Tottenham are the standard that other clubs are gradually adopting.

Both managers fell short of their primary goal, the Premier League title. Liverpool surrendered a commanding mid-season lead and were never able to recover. Tottenham continued their proud history of keeping the pressure on before bottling the season and finishing behind Chelsea. Neither reached a domestic cup final. Obviously, only one will finish the season with a trophy.

Yet whoever loses in Madrid will not be considered a failure. Neither club will call the manager into the office in early June and say “Had you won the Champions League we could have tolerated everything else. But this season was an empty-handed failure. Pack up.”

Unlike Chelsea, Juventus, PSG, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Inter and AC Milan, the two Champions League finalists did not meet most of their objectives for the season. But those two “unsuccessful” managers have the most job security of the lot.

The clubs going into the summer potentially seeking a new manager may be realizing the emptiness of achieving their minimal tangible goals.

If those achievements do not come in the context of long-term progress, if they look more like the end of a season than the beginning of an era, if the consensus is they were won despite rather than because, then they are hollow honours. Conversely, a coach who has built a culture, mentality and cohesion amongst his players and across the club has the basis of long-term success, even if the current season (and foregoing seasons) did not produce any trophies.

Chelsea’s management may recognize what we’ve been saying all season: yes, the men qualified for the Champions League, the one absolute must-do task for any manager. But the quality of the product on the pitch did not improve, at least not since September. The overall improvement does not track in any way with the money spent last summer nor how pliant the club were in bringing the coach “his” players. The cohesion within the locker room is no better than before, and the fan base is more fractured than ever. Other than Chelsea’s finishing position in three tournaments, there are few points of agreement about the team’s quality and even fewer about their direction.

The team’s successes this season feel like a dead-end, or at best a blip, rather than a dawn.

Similar conversations may be taking place across Italy, and at top clubs in Spain, Germany and France. Along with new managers, these clubs may come out of the summer with new definitions of the minimum standard of success. Those standards may include more than just trophies.

They may look to the seasons ahead as well as the one just completed in judging the manager. If he did not do something for the future of the club, perhaps that’s a sign he should not have a future there himself.

Without being too optimistic, this could be a turning point away from the flailing short-termism that Chelsea has perfected and exported for so long.