Chelsea might lurch from one manager to another, because lurching around aimlessly is what you do when you don’t have a philosophy to inform your actions.
Hello, my loves. I know you are here for the Chelsea gospel and the gospel is good. For that I appreciate your attention and time and never think I don’t. Yes, I know as you do that whether or not I am right or wrong is more a question of time than truth.
If Chelsea are going to fire Maurizio Sarri for Frank Lampard at any point, they may as well do it this summer. Thinking that waiting presents a better option simply because it’s not now makes you a fool, but not to worry, today shall be the beginning of your education.
The biggest issue troubling Chelsea Football Club is not that they have half the talent of the people they’re competing against. Nor is it their incredibly stubborn manager who underestimated the level of the competition he is now tasked with mastering. Nor is it that they’re playing a young man’s game with an ever older and more outdated group of players.
The issue is their lack of direction, a philosophy, if you will. Ethos, maybe, if that catches your fancy. I, though, prefer an ideology, one clear cut and important that rises above the players, the coach or even the owner. That is what the club lacks.
Think about it for a moment. Real Madrid’s ideology is winning above all else and sacrificing anything, as necessary, to win. No matter the cost moral or economic, Los Meringues have never cared and look at what they have done. Thirteen European Cups and 33 La Liga titles. Unprecedented levels of success for a club who values nothing more than that.
Barcelona are successful, too, but they are dedicated to a passion and a style. They achieve it time and time again, but not necessarily all the time. Those children or false students of the game who only remember Barcelona as a successful organization are missing the dramatic and infighting team that loved nothing more than to tear itself apart from the mid 1990’s to mid 2000’s, when they didn’t win the league once.
During that time they strayed from their philosophy. Only with Ronaldinho’s arrival before the reign of Lionel Messi did Barcelona became the team they are today.
Juventus are the similarly dedicated to winning, much in the same sense as Real Madrid, but their priority is dominating domestically. The most important title for Juventus is Serie A, and that has always been the case.
In recent years they have put more emphasis on the Champions League, but that is only after marching through what is now eight titles in a row.
Chelsea have none of this. On one day their goal is to make a profit. Another, it is to win titles. On another it is to play like Barcelona.
How fundamentally embarrassing is that, by the way? And how much does it explain? How small fish ridiculous? Your goal in life is to be someone else? To play like another team? To not be built of your own merit but on the fundamentals of another? That’s the sort of idiotic self-destructive thought every pick-up-their-self-esteem teenage movie has taught generations of children is wrong and yet the best club in London can’t get their heads around it.
Chelsea must pick a philosophy, stick to it and develop it until it truly defines the club. Football is not about the game played on the field, but the match above it in the hearts and minds of the players, coach, staff, all those associated with it and the tribes of people who support them.
Football is all that.
If Chelsea believe in the sort of philosophy Maurizio Sarri preaches – one of intelligence and attacking football – then they must support him. As frustrating and blindingly annoying as he and his press conferences and entitled attitude may be, that is what they should do.
But then the club might bring Frank Lampard back and returning the club to its core values: success, loyalty and character. The sort of things Lampard sweats. If they’re going to do it, they should do it now.
Too much time is spent in the middle bouncing between options. Should Chelsea go right or left? Should they go up or down? Stick or fold?
The tea lady should know what the club is going to do. The supporters should know, and obviously the manager and the players should know because it is who they should be.
Decisive action and dedication are traits of winners. Instead, Chelsea are stuck in some middle ground yet again.
The Sarri – Lampard decision and the transfer ban provide a test. There are still smart, progressive and strong options available to the club. If they don’t make them because they’re too foolish or foolhardy, then nothing was ever going to improve anyway.
A great influence on my approach to management and evaluating managers is Phil Jackson. Not because of his honors as a coach – that is not the only way to rate someone, as I have said before and won’t indulge the idiots again – but because of how he approaches the mental side of the preparations that build toward success. His integration of philosophy into a larger coaching ideology is the sort of thing Chelsea could learn from. This is Chelsea’s greatest weakness.
The club don’t have a mental game and yet seek to play a physical one. This disparity will persist for the long-term given the club’s short-term failures.
I’ll leave you with three quotes that will help explain this until we revisit this issue further next week:
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.”
“Good teams become great teams when the members trust each other enough to surrender the me for the we.”
“The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”