Chelsea fans have notoriously short-term memories, but today’s subliterate howls are a new low considering how Chelsea have spent the last few years compared to Bayern Munich or Liverpool.
Four years ago this week Jurgen Klopp had Liverpool in ninth place in the Premier League. They would rise as high as sixth before finishing 2015/16 in eighth place, two spots above where interim manager Guus Hiddink landed the Blues. The next season, when Klopp would have the benefit of not only a full year in charge but also the all-important full preseason, they finished fourth, one place behind Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. Across the 2015/16 to 2017/18 seasons – that’s three of them – Bayern Munich spent a total of 16 weeks out of the top spot in the Bundesliga.
In the summers following those two seasons, Liverpool signed (among others) Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane, Georginio Wijnaldum and – on a free transfer – James Milner. Those same summers saw the arrival of Kingsley Coman, Joshua Kimmich, Mats Hummels and Arturo Vidal to Bayern Munich.
Last summer, Chelsea watched the transfer market from the sidelines. Bayern Munich added World Cup-winners Benjamin Pavard and Lucas Hernandez, and Philippe Coutinho. Chelsea were prohibited from doing much more than selling the Premier League’s most creative player to Real Madrid.
The last time Chelsea won a knockout round game, let alone a tie, was in the Champions League quarterfinals in 2014. Of the 18 players in that matchday squad against Paris Saint-Germain, only four are still with the club: Willian, Cesar Azpilicueta, Petr Cech and Frank Lampard.
Five months later, Ruben Loftus-Cheek would play in his first and so far last Champions League match. He went 77 minutes against Maccabi Tel Aviv before managerial turnover, a series of injuries and one season on loan converged to keep him out of Europe’s top competition. Of that matchday squad, only Azpilicueta, Willian and Kurt Zouma remain at Chelsea, although back-up goalkeeper Jamal Blackman is still with the loan army.
Last season was the first time since 2010/11 that Bayern Munich did not advance beyond the Round of 16. Their vanquishers in 2010/11 were defending champions Inter Milan, and last season it was eventual champions Liverpool.
One year ago today, Reece James was learning what a relegation scrap felt like as his first season of senior level football had him leading the Championship’s 20th-place team Wigan. He had to crane his neck far up the second tier table to see his mates Mason Mount and Fikayo Tomori thriving under first-year manager Frank Lampard. They were all the way up in seventh, battling for a promotion playoff spot.
Four and a half months ago, James played his first Champions League game. Tomori and Mount made their Champions League debuts in the previous group stage game.
Chelsea could have done a lot better technically and mentally against Bayern Munich. As Frank Lampard said, only Mateo Kovacic looked like he belonged on this stage. But there should be little surprise about that. Of the starters, only Kovacic, Olivier Giroud and arguably Cesar Azpilicueta have ever been on a stage like that before.
The gap in quality between Chelsea and Bayern Munich exemplifies why this game was not competed by two teams, but by two clubs. One club has been built on a foundation of success that comes from having a near monopoly on their league for the last decade. Success breeds success, but that in no way discounts the effort necessary to maintain that success. Bayern’s recruitment, development, transfer business and administration has enabled their success to continue.
Bayern Munich are always building towards the future. They were building towards yesterday’s game back when Chelsea were winning their last Champions League knockout round tie. Few clubs take this approach, and fewer still do it as well.
Liverpool did not just win last season’s Champions League. They are not flukishly winning this season’s Premier League.
Liverpool’s unbeaten record this season started when Guus Hiddink was ending Matt Miazga’s career, months after Chelsea fans brought the rat banners to Stamford Bridge. Liverpool had a plan for James Milner and Trent Alexander-Arnold all the way back to when Chelsea were shopping loans for Mason Mount in the Eredivisie.
Bayern Munich brought a decade or more of strategic strength to Stamford Bridge. Assuming Chelsea really are at the beginning of a new era, they lined up with their six months of Frank Lampard against Bayern’s six years of Robert Lewandowski.
In between spoonfuls of lead paint, ChelsTwit’s loudest ask why Chelsea can not be more like Liverpool while calling for the club to sack Frank Lampard for doing exactly what most people set as the upper limit of this season: Round of 16 in the Champions League and qualify for next season’s. That’s more than Jurgen Klopp did in his first partial season or his first full season (since they weren’t in Europe that year).
Life moves fast, and football moves faster. But it’s not that hard to look at a bit of history while pounding the table for a long-term plan.