If you think Chelsea fans don’t know how to treat their flops, you should see how they act around some of their best! These Blues rarely receive a fraction of the credit they deserve.
Antonio Conte has Inter Milan challenging for a Serie A title, which is leading some Chelsea fans to wonder if just maybe he knew what he was doing when he led Chelsea to a record-setting win streak en route to the Premier League title while driving tactical changes across the league. Who are some other Blues who were only appreciated after they left?
1. Misunderstood target men: Daniel Sturridge, Demba Ba, Olivier Giroud (Varun Dani)
Chelsea has seemed to be in a state of perpetual change at striker ever since the Didier Drogba era ended in 2012. From Fernando Torres to Tammy Abraham, Stamford Bridge has seen 13 strikers over seven years try their hand at becoming the club’s new undisputed No. 9 (or, erm… No. 11).
Other than Diego Costa’s brief carnage and Abraham’s new young flame, general opinion would be that Chelsea have picked their strikers miserably, and while that might be true for most of them, Demba Ba, Daniel Sturridge and Olivier Giroud bucked the trend but never seem to get the appreciation they deserved.
Sturridge joined Chelsea in the peak Drogba era, but he should have been the striker to replace the Ivorian. Quick and skillful with a devastating left foot, Sturridge was capable of leading the line or playing as an inside forward; and could make an impact off the bench.
You would think all these traits could not have gone unnoticed, but due to frequent changes of managers and some untimely injuries, Sturridge went somewhat under the radar.
Sturridge went on to show that he had all the talent in the world at Liverpool and, had it been for better luck, would be still leading the line for them. If only Chelsea had nurtured him and given him the game time he deserved, Sturridge could have led the line at Stamford Bridge to this day. Perhaps, it was just bad luck (which pretty much summarizes the Englishman’s career).
Demba Ba’s and Olivier Giroud’s Blue careers were uncannily similar: bargain winter arrivals, proven goal-scoring records at their previous clubs in England, brought in to provide valuable back up to the main strikers. Both started off well and brought similar qualities to the team. They were strong target men who could score themselves and still enhance the level of attackers feeding off them.
Both were sidelined by the club bringing in once-elite strikers who were past their days (Samuel Eto’o and Gonzalo Higuain) and still maintained utmost professionalism despite the circumstances.
Had the club treated them better and maximized their abilities, Ba and Giroud would have helped the club’s main strikers significantly and saved the Blues from the banter signings of Radamel Falcao, Alexandre Pato and Gonzalo Higuain. They deserved better.
2. Andre Villas-Boas: If he was better, would we have had Munich? (Kevin Peacock)
Andre Villas-Boas was appointed Chelsea manager in the summer of 2011 after the shock sacking of Carlo Ancelotti. To Chelsea fans, the arrival of Jose Mourinho’s former number two was as underwhelming as it was uninspiring. Villas-Boas appeared to have been brought in to lower the average age of the starting XI.
Results were indifferent throughout his time, but it was his relationship with some of the senior players at the club that caused the most friction. John Terry, Frank Lampard and Michael Essien all found themselves benched for the “greater good.” The situation came to a head following a 3-1 defeat in the Champions League at Napoli. Lampard, Essien and Ashley Cole were all dropped for that game.
Following that and a subsequent 1-0 defeat to West Bromwich Albion that left Chelsea trailing in the race for fourth, the powers that be decided a change was needed. It was a seminal moment.
Villas-Boas’ crass stupidity in thinking he could overcome the player-power that had been instigated by Mourinho eight years prior is massively unappreciated.
Roberto di Matteo and Eddie Newton were tasked with steadying the ship and pushing for a place in the following season’s Champions League. The club finished the season in sixth place. However, the more relaxed environment instigated by di Matteo saw Chelsea defeat Bayern Munich in the Champions League final and Liverpool in the FA Cup final.
What began as a damp squib for Blues fans ended in the most glorious of nights in Germany, thanks to Andre Villas-Boas’ appalling man-management skills.
3. Dr. Eva Carneiro: We should have trusted her – she’s a doctor (George Perry)
Injuries are a part of football, just as they are a part of every sport. Some teams suffer more injuries than others, and sometimes the causes are rather obvious: more demanding style of play, more games in a season, smaller squad, mismanagement.
But just as how tactics don’t just happen – there’s a manager back there teaching and coordinating the players – injuries don’t just happen, or more specifically, they don’t just not happen. When a team regularly has very few injuries, someone is responsible for that: several someone’s, usually. And when a team experiences a sudden spike in injuries, perhaps a spike that lasts so long it becomes a plateau and then – worse yet – the accepted norm, it’s often because one of those someone’s left.
Chelsea have become accustomed to never having a fully healthy squad and always having at least one player who would otherwise be a regular in the first team out with a long-term injury. The turning point towards what should be an unacceptable baseline was August 9, 2015.
Jose Mourinho hit one of his personal and professional nadirs when Chelsea’s team doctor, Dr. Eva Carneiro ran onto the pitch to treat Eden Hazard in the season opener against Swansea City. Mourinho explained after the game that Hazard was not really hurt, but was simply tired late in the game; and that by going onto the pitch to treat him, Carneiro forced Hazard temporarily out of action as the already 10-man Blues were defending a set piece. He expects his medical staff to think tactically first, then medically, Hippocrates be damned.
But Mourinho justified himself after he shouted an unprintable and unacceptable insult towards Carneiro, and slightly before he demoted her from her position tending to the first team.
A few years and another lost lawsuit later, Chelsea have dealt with one injury after another, with the manager usually having a slightly different list of injured players to open each press conference.
Most concerning are the players with injuries that have moved beyond “long term” into the realm of chronic, or who have experienced the daisy chain of injuries that comes from a kinetic chain still reeling from the initial insult.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek, the player who best exemplifies a lifetime at Chelsea Football Club, also exemplifies that trend. Just as players and teams need continuity in style of play and management to be at their best, they need continuity along with quality in medical care, rehabilitation and athletic performance training.
The kind the Blues had from 2011*-2015 at the highest level, but have never replaced.
*Andre Villas-Boas brought Dr. Carneiro into the first team – another reason to appreciate him more.
4. Antonio Conte: Chelsea fans at their least appreciative (Barrett Rouen)
Antonio Conte is one of the best managers in the world and certainly the best I have ever seen at Chelsea. Look no further than Victor Moses as an example. With Conte, he’s one of the best right wing-backs in the world and dominates his side of play in both directions. Without Conte, he barely made an impact in the Turkish Super Lig.
Antonio Conte improved literally every player at Chelsea. If he didn’t do that then he was still smart enough to implement a system that defeated both Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp in a single year. He didn’t waste time like Maurizio Sarri saying he needed several years to get to “his football”: he just got on with it and won.
For those who would deride his attitude, I urge you to think differently. Did he do that his first season when he had no weight to throw behind his words? No. He won the league with David Luiz at center-back, Victor Moses on the right flank and Nemanja Matic in midfield while playing fantastic football that first year. Are you kidding??
To be Chelsea manager is to be constantly undermined, disregarded, embarrassed and ultimately unappreciated. After his successes Antonio Conte had every right to be as upset as he was. Chelsea have never done their managers any favors unless they fought for them. So Conte did exactly that. He fought for them and then he left.
Look at the job he’s doing in Italy right now. He has, in yet another single season, turned Inter Milan into a side that are possibly going to break Juventus’ decade-long stranglehold on that league.
He was a great manager and expected Chelsea to be a better club. I can’t fault him for that as I am equally upset for the same reasons literally every day.
5. Marcos Alonso: Victim of the most ignorant (Abhishek Pancholi)
Marcos Alonso is useless. Marcos Alonso is too slow. Marcos Alonso is #NotMyFullback, so I’ll post pictures of his face with a red X superimposed on it to look cool.
ChelsTwit’s opinions about Marcos Alonso usually revolve around a variation of these three schools of “thought.” Things have become so absurd that there is hardly any appreciation for what Alonso brings to this team and his contributions so far.
Lest we forget – and it is imperative that ChelsTwit is reminded of this periodically – it was the introduction of Marcos Alonso on the left side of Antonio Conte’s five-man backline that was a crucial factor in Chelsea’s title win. Not only did Alonso provide a different dimension to Chelsea’s tactical shape, he chipped in with valuable goals from pin-point free kicks or counter-attacks where the opponents are caught off-guard by the fullback in their box, hitting a low, driven shot into the corner of the goal.
Frank Lampard was misled into believing that Emerson was a better option at the start of this season, but after watching the Brazitailan lose track of his man one time too many, Lampard turned to old faithful to steady the ship.
Of course, Alonso has his weaknesses but the devil is not so black as he is painted. Social media amplifies his shortcomings and glosses over anything that he does well. The lack of goal contributions that is used as a stick to beat Cesar Azpilicueta is conveniently ignored when it comes to Alonso as it is “not his primary job.”
Whatever the consensus, the fact remains that Marcos Alonso is one of the most under-appreciated players at the club in recent times. He does not deserve all the hate and abuse that comes his way.
Maybe when he moves to Inter Milan or Atletico Madrid in the summer people will take the blindfolds off their eyes and see him for what he really is: a pretty good attacking wingback who won the Premier League, FA Cup and Europa League with Chelsea. Maybe then he can get the respect he deserves.