Why is Chelsea run so good? The reasons London’s best run club is blue

If you ever doubted how well Chelsea was being run, you just need to look across London at other semi-notable clubs like Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. Chelsea has a tradition of doing away with managers that don’t deliver. Whether the fans expected them to deliver or not, the Chelsea hierarchy does and there’s a reason. Sometimes they have unrealistic expectations, but it doesn’t change the fact that they sack managers they feel are not delivering. This has led many Chelsea fans to be dissatisfied with the club’s hierarchy and coupled with some questionable transfers, these fans are under the impression that the club is badly run.

As with all things, everyone always thinks their club is poorly run until they see a club that is actually badly run then they’re forced to reconsider. There is a stark difference between a club that is not run badly and a club that is actually run well. To know a club that is run well, you have to consider what the aim of the club owner/club hierarchy is and the general aim of football clubs and football as a game.

Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea to make them a European giant and to make profit. This is evident in how he’s conducted affairs at the club since his arrival in 2003. The appointment of Marina Granovskaia is also an indication of that. Granovskaia’s job is to see to the final wellbeing of the club especially with regards to transfers. She has done an excellent job of it. The transfer deals that have been made have looked similar so far (for the most part); good deals, potential for profit later. N’Golo Kante cost the blues £32 million, so did Eden Hazard. Kante has contributed heavily to a Premier League title, FA Cup title, UEFA Champions League title and to some extent, the UEFA Super Cup trophy. Hazard contributed to two Premier League titles, two Europa League titles and one FA Cup title and was still sold for about £130 million.

Chelsea’s managerial appointments have also shown the club’s ambition to make sure that the club is coached by the very best to give them the best chance of winning. Appointing then one-time Champions League winner Jose Mourinho, then appointing then two-time Champions League winner Carlo Ancelotti. They’ve always had a track record of appointing winners.

After the sacking of Jose Mourinho for the second time, the club appointed Antonio Conte who started the Scudetto monopoly with Juventus, he would later return to break it. Despite all these high profile appointments, Abramovich has been consistently ruthless, sacking anyone that has not delivered the targets set for him. Are some of those targets unrealistic? Maybe. However there are standards, and when those have been set, you either meet them, or you’re out the door.

Chelsea’s planning when it comes to managerial appointments is not given enough credit either. The latest sacking highlights the fact that the club has always had a clear plan about the replacement of a current manager. To start with, they hired a manager that they knew the fans would like in Frank Lampard, to see them through a period no one else would have agreed to, then they kept him on even after the ban was lifted and he delivered Champions League football.

They even went ahead to stock the team with elite European talent going into the new season to give Lampard as much chance of winning as possible. They then had the clear-headedness to sack Lampard when the team spirit and results were deteriorating, and had an arrangement in place by the time that was done. They were intentional every step of the way.

Compare this to Arsenal, who handed the keys to a rebuild to a manager, Mikel Arteta, who’s most notable achievement was being the assistant of a successful manager. Arsenal is supposed to be a big English club, yet they hired a manager with no managerial experience. This manager was further able to trick his employers by winning an FA Cup and a Community shield, then went on to deliver an esteemed eighth place finish, twice in a row (brilliant manager).

Now Arteta has started the new season with the worst expected goals against (xGA) and the worst expected goals scored (xG) in the Premier League so far; yes, worse than Norwich. He has also lost his first three Premier League games without scoring, and one of them was against a newly promoted side.

Arsenal’s recruitment is also in contrast to Chelsea’s. Take the previous two seasons for example. Chelsea was the highest spender in the 2020 summer transfer window, spending about 200+ million on Ben Chilwell, of the best left backs in the country; Hakim Ziyech, who has shown his creativity consistently in the Eredivisie and the Champions League; Timo Werner, who has shown his goal scoring ability, second highest goal scorer only behind Robert Lewandowski; Edouard Mendy, a goalkeeper to start for a team that clearly had issues between the sticks; Thiago Silva, a world class leader and defender on a free transfer, who had captained and still captains Brazil; Kai Havertz, one of the most talented youngsters in Europe at the time.

Arsenal, in contrast, is the highest spender so far in the current 2021 summer transfer window. They have spent £139+ million on Albert Sambi Lokonga, a youngster from Belgian club Anderlecht; Aaron Ramsdale, a backup goalkeeper who has been relegated twice in two seasons, in a team that did not need a goalkeeper; Ben White, a centerback who has only one season in top flight football; Martin Odegaard, a youngster who has not been able to make his mark at Madrid and didn’t set the world alight when he was on loan at Arsenal last season.

The difference is instantly clear, Chelsea bought players for the first team, players that they could use to challenge in Europe and in the Premier League for titles, Arsenal bought squad players at best that cannot challenge for anything anytime soon, and what’s worse is that Arsenal put these players in the hands of a manager that has no experience managing young talent.

You could also look at Tottenham’s embarrassing managerial episode. That club had an opportunity to hire Antonio Conte, one of the best managers in Europe currently, and they messed it up. Then they had to beg about five other managers to work for them, only to eventually settle on an imitation of Jose Mourinho in Nuno Espirito Santo, except without Mourinho’s trophies and charisma.

Chelsea’s hierarchy works with intention and careful planning because the owner has a clear vision of what he wants for the club, compared to the owners of the abovementioned clubs who care all about profit and nothing about football. Abramovich also cares about profit, showing in the fact that Chelsea has made a profit in a window where it spent £97.5 million on one player. Abramovich appreciates the need for the balance of the two; football and money. This is why Chelsea has made more profit, in sales most especially, than many big clubs in England since the Russian took over, while also winning more trophies than said clubs.