Chelsea board deserves praise for current successes

Chelsea travelled to northern Italy coming off a humbling defeat at the hands of Manchester City. The picture was far more grim in Turin domestically. The Old Lady’s torrid start to the year has been lessened slightly after they picked up their first wins of the season scraping into the top half of Serie A and over the Blues in the Champions League.

Contradictory to both team’s previous results, Chelsea went into the game in a far stronger position. In spite of the loss to City, the Blues’ first of the season in all competitions, where they were dominated and played apprehensively, they are seen as genuine title challengers in England. The same cannot be said of Juventus, who has returned to Massimiliano Allegri. It’s far from an easy task with a team that had its deficiencies masked by the continuous stream of Cristiano Ronaldo goals in front of a porous defence and a disjointed midfield. However, that isn’t even the biggest issue, and the starkest difference that separates these two European giants. It is the management behind the clubs that tells a deeper story.

The Chelsea board deserves praise for its team building and business accumen

Juventus can take some solace in the fact that it had its case regarding the Super League dropped by UEFA. Of course, Chelsea was a part of the “rebel group” as well, but to a lesser extent and not as financially tied to the success of the project. The Old Lady is still strapped for cash. Perhaps not to the extent that ESL partner Barcelona is, but the losses are mammoth. On September 18, 2021, the club announced “a loss of €209.9 million during the 2020/21 season which was played entirely behind closed doors.”

COVID-19 could not have been predicted, but a lack of planning ahead cost Juventus. Not only was there no answer to replacing the immensely successful Allegri, while at the peak of his powers and five straight Serie A titles with a certain Maurizio Sarri, but the board had floundered in the transfer market. According to Transfermarkt, the total sum of players leaving Juventus from 2020 to present is around £115 million. Over the same period, Chelsea sold £148 million worth of talent in initial fees alone.

The numbers mean little in a vacuum, but in the context of a board constantly generating finances that can allow it to continue to improve, £20 million is a sizable chunk. It’s rich to call out Juventus for switching out managers and paying expensive compensation packages, but Juve paid Chelsea to release Sarri from his contract, and then was obliged to pay him anywhere between £18 to 27 million after he was terminated.

The Chelsea board might not always get the manager appointments correct. For every Jose Mourinho (The Special One version), Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte or Thomas Tuchel, there is a Maurizio Sarri, Andre Villas Boas, Luiz Felipe Scolari or post-UCL triumph Roberto Di Matteo. However, they never get the direction of the club wrong and very rarely do they get transfers wrong. Everyone knows the names by now, including a then 15-year-old French striker, now World Cup winner.

Coming into the game against Juventus, there was reason for Chelsea to be optimistic, regardless of its form. Even looking past the Juventus loss, there is always the reason for optimism because the board, Roman Abramovich and Marina Granovskaia have set the club up for success. When a club is stumbling, most of the ire is focused on the players and the manager. While they are responsible for the performances on the pitch, often the decisions the upper management makes are the biggest driver of success.

One need look no further than Tottenham Hotspur for the perfect juxtaposition to the Blues. A few years ago, Spurs were establishing themselves firmly in the top four of the league. Managed by Mauricio Pochettino, led by Harry Kane and Son Heung-min and crucially, guided by Paul Mitchell. Mitchell was Southampton’s Director of Recruitment before taking on the same role at Spurs in 2014. He reportedly left after clashes with senior club officials, going so far as to tell David Hytner that “he felt his dream job turn into a nightmare.”

The board at Spurs has since then fired Pochettino, failed with Mourinho and inexplicably removed him right before their League Cup final. Forgetting that, if there is a manager you want for a one off game to win, it is always Mourinho. Tottenham’s replacement manager saga played out rather publicly and shambolically. Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy is a notoriously hard-line negotiator, reportedly part of the reason for Mitchell’s departure, a stance that was made evident in the Kane saga this past summer.

Now, Tottenham is struggling. Spurs appointed Nuno Espirito Santo, who has imparted no persona to the team and whose Wolves team was on a downward trend when he was appointed. Even more so than Nuno’s lack of identity or philosophy so far, their biggest mistake came regarding Kane. The England captain thought he was free to leave, wanted to leave and everything pointed to him leaving for a substantial sum. Yet, Levy dug his heels in. Perhaps greedy to eek another £20 million out of Kane if he has another Golden Boot season.

It’s coming back to bite Levy every weekend nowadays. Kane looks less than comfortable in this Spurs team. Against Chelsea, he had to drop so deep to touch the ball he became almost useless. Against Arsenal, Kane looked brighter, but the team has so many holes. It is, like Juventus, finally becoming clear the deficiencies cannot be masked by one man’s consistent goal scoring. Now, Levy is stuck with a manager yet to prove his worth, a striker that doesn’t appear to want to be there and a team that needs to be upgraded in half of the positions. Don’t forget, Levy had one shot at that already and how did that ‘Magnificent Seven’ turn out?

For all of the drama that surrounds the Chelsea owner, the club’s transfer dealings, managerial decisions and the loan army, that sort of stuff never happens in SW6. Whether it is maximizing every transfer, splurging on (mostly) the right players or allowing a player who has given the club years of excellent service the move they want, the Chelsea board has been consistently superior to almost all other European giants. That deserves praise and then some.