Chelsea FC didn’t make any headline grabbing moves during the transfer window, and though it’s frustrating, it means very little.
When Chelsea were given the transfer ban, many people commented that it was in the best interest of the club. There was no need for the team to have the best youth set-up in the division and countless titles at the youth level if they were never going to play those players. The ban would also force the club to temper their expectations, breaking out of the usual immediate and unrealistic demands for success.
Now people are acting as if something has changed.
The Blues decided to appeal their ban and have it reduced, which in retrospect is peculiar as they apparently didn’t have any interest in adding any players.
In the interest of righteousness, though, it is interesting. Perhaps the Blues really did feel they were wronged. They felt they were innocent, victims of a double standard compared to Manchester City, and did not want to have their name muddied by the relatively clumsy and ridiculous accusations leveled at them.
It’s understandable! Unlikely, but understandable.
Before the season started Blues fans knew that this was going to be a tough year. They knew at least four or five sides in the Premier League had better squads than Chelsea; and that the Blues were going to be playing with inexperienced players managed by an inexperienced manager.
Nothing has changed, and that shouldn’t be seen as a surprise.
The most frustrating thing about it has been the strange lack of direction and unity in the club. Sadly, that also hasn’t changed at all. A typically endless array of nonsensical targets were bandied about and mixed messages presented by the board, the manager and players.
If one thing was going to change about the club, the best thing would have been a new direction – an actual direction, any direction. The reason the club is even in their current hole is because of their chronic lack of a long-term plan. They have spent year after year throwing countless millions at the wall in the hopes that something would stick. And guess what? Nothing has.
So in usual Chelsea fashion the noise has been loud and the flair for the dramatics amazing, but nothing has really changed so far.
Whatever this current strategy is, they have been at it for less than a year, and there is no reason to think they should or possibly could be ahead of schedule.
They’re still in fourth place, which is ahead of where they likely should be. They’ve played the youth a lot, and those players have progressed just as much.
Chelsea overall are exactly where they should be, even as they over- and underperform in different areas along the way. They’re making slow progress in the right direction and not doing anything foolish to disrupt that.
In a way, for the first time in a very long time, that is a more important and significant thing than any signing could possibly have been.