Tactics and Transfers: Chelsea must do the hardest thing, Conte thoughts

Chelsea is in a strong position going into the international break. The Blues are at the top of the league and they’re playing better and more consistent football than many of their title rivals. Liverpool recently dropped points yet again, but this time to West Ham. Manchester City is great, per usual, but still lacking the sense of magic and soul that makes a team excellent. Unfortunately though, Spurs seem to have performed the miracle of hiring the best and most ambitious manager in world football. How that happened, other than their absurd contract offer, nobody truly knows.

The truth is, Chelsea must look inwards rather than out in the search for its next Premier League title. The squad has more than enough talent and in Thomas Tuchel, it has a manager with both the humanity and emotional intelligence—coupled with the tactical nous—to get the job done. All of their issues are those that are self-made, addressed with accountability and professionalism. Those are things that have often prove to be truths too hard for many a young footballing millionaire to accept and a manager to communicate.

Chelsea must overcome itself en route to another Premier League title chase

No longer is it true that the Blues don’t have the striking talent to compete at the top level. They have Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner, both are 20-goal per season strikers everywhere except west London. Chelsea will need to find that answer. It is no longer true that the team doesn’t have the creative talent. The Blues have Kai Havertz, Mason Mount, Ross Barkley, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech and Callum Hudson-Odoi. Why Havertz is so much better as a striker than the position he was bought to play will need to be addressed at some point. Especially because we likely could have known that if we’d paid attention to his game more closely at Bayer Leverkusen.

No longer is the midfield pivot the weakest of any contending side in Europe. The re-emergence of Ruben Loftus-Cheek (in the position I said he should be playing three years ago) coupled with two Ballon D’Or winners and a Croatian born to collect Champions League trophies has seen to that. The defense then is as deep as it could hope to be and I don’t wish to continue on further than that because I have more points to make. The squad is a great one. It’s talented and deep and built for multiple formations. It is not so obvious that the team can only play a certain way that tactics for the opposition are gifted to their managers in advance.

That said, when Chelsea makes mistakes, it will need to come to terms with the fact that its future is in its own hands. The Blues’ failures are their responsibility. That has long been the hardest thing for this club to accept. In fact, it has been the categorical limitation of the club for over a decade. We can only hope that Chelsea comes to terms with this and matures into the team that it has the potential to be. The only thing that the Blues should be focusing on as we move into the winter is re-signing certain players and fixing whatever is wrong so that Lukaku is able to play and score at the level he was signed to do. The fact that the side looks its best when Havertz is playing as a No. 9 is another thing that I have said, but not one I am excited to be right about. I’d more describe it as trepidatiously rewarded with a thin veil of self-righteousness.

It is absurd that the Blues are on the verge of losing Cesar Azpilicueta, Andreas Christensen Antonio Rudiger and Thiago Silva. What kind of contract management scenario is this? All four should be re-signed. Rumor has it that Chelsea is offering Rudiger £140,000 when he is asking for £200,000. Since when have the Blues squabbled over those sort of numbers? Sign the check. Silva still looks like the player Paris Saint-Germain used to start its club in the early 2010s before he made the move of its letting him go look as horrendous as it has since then. He should get a two-year extension if just to have his grace around a while longer before he moves back to Brazil and his boyhood club, Fluminense. Christensen, I have fewer comments on. Azpilicueta is our captain and our leader; he should be offered another four years out of respect. When he’s done, he’ll stand down. If you don’t know that’s true or understand that to be his character then I would ask why you’re reading this sentence to the very end, as you’re clearly a Man United or Liverpool supporter.

That’s all Chelsea needs to do; cross its t’s, dot its i’s and keep its eyes on the prize. Matches like the one against Burnley are examples of the tests that the Blues must pass. Older Chelsea sides would have complained about Burnley in that match, but Tuchel didn’t allow that. If the Blues seek to be the protagonists then they must accept the responsibility that comes with being so.

Finally, Antonio Conte has signed for Tottenham and that’s both great and terrible news for the Premier League. If think something negative about Conte or the quality of his managerial acumen, I would venture to say that before suggesting such things publicly, you clearly know so tediously little about football and life that you should recommit to your studies of the game. Read some history and look at his trophy cabinet before you embarrass yourself publicly. If anything, the only issue with him is that he is so successful and so ambitious that no one can match him. He overturned Juventus and then left because his club couldn’t match his ambition.

It’s the same move he has made at every top level side he’s managed and to some degree, he has been correct. It’s not as if he hasn’t won and blamed other people. He has performed magnificently and been so uncompromising in his ambition and staunch in his beliefs that he has left of his own accord. It’s important to remember when he sued Chelsea, he won. All the man does is win. If he had been in SW6 this whole time, we’d likely be discussing plans for not only the Premier League and Champions League defenses at this point, but also plans for interstellar domination. He’d still be angry that we hadn’t built spacecraft fast enough to do it in the way he needed. The record he has of fulfilling his ambitions is hardly something to turn one’s nose up at.

Conte solidifies the fact that if you’re a real competitor, there is but one league in Europe for you to manage in. He is a fantastic manager and it’s a great addition for Spurs. He has never not won the league in a top division while managing it and he will create a Tottenham side with teeth, ambition, drive and force of will. Essentially, all the things we can usually count on Spurs to lack. The good news is they’re Spurs, so though Conte will make them better, we can count on Daniel Levy to put the top down somewhere before greatness. That dynamic is definitely going to be interesting.

My big worry is about what happens if Spurs doesn’t qualify for the Champions League this season? Conte with just the league to focus on with a full summer’s planning on assaulting the whole division is exactly the sort of problem I don’t want to have.

He was and possibly still is the best manager I have ever seen at Chelsea outside of Jose Mourinho Mach I. To be fair, we need to see Tuchel handle a full season and not just a cup run to add him to that list. Conte’s return to England has made it even harder to secure top four, let alone win the division. The only real improvement that could be made to the division now would be for Man United to do something smart like sign Diego Simeone. Food for thought.