Tactics and Transfers special edition: Chaos at Chelsea pre-Liverpool

Firstly, apologies readers for having taken something of a life and mental health sabbatical.

Calmness is the first thing that Chelsea needs if it’s going to arrest its current slump in form and maintain enough of a position to challenge for the title at the end of the season. It’s true things don’t look good at the moment. In the midst of a COVID-19 surge, an injury crisis, a record signing’s poor media judgment and losing the clubs starting goalkeeper to the upcoming AFCON tournament, it’s easy to understand the tension among the fanbase. That is so painfully emanating from within the club.

All that said, a healthy dose of perspective in some areas and accountability in others is incredibly important. Things might feel as though they’re happening in a vacuum but the truth is they’re not. Chelsea is not the only club suffering from the Coronavirus pandemic. Literally all of them are because literally all of us are. Football is the best microcosm for the world at large because it ebbs and flows like it and the entire planet is struggling with what exactly to do moving forward.

For a club in second place and onto the knockout stages of the Champions League, things at Chelsea are quickly and unnecessarily descending into chaos.

The Blues recently had an outbreak at the training ground. How it happened and trying to find a way to point fingers and assign blame isn’t really relevant. It happened. It would then make sense though that at the moment things are bad in terms of it moving its way through the squad. That is natural, it’s a virus that takes a couple days to show on tests. Sadly, more players will likely catch it and so will staff and their families and then it will start to recede. That’s the simple truth. This is simply Chelsea’s time to deal with this and it will happen to other clubs this season too. Part of managing a successful football club during the COVID years is obviously going to be managing COVID. How that is still not obvious to people is beyond belief.

If anything, the Blues are lucky that their outbreak—which is of course adding strain to an already stretched squad—has happened now and not during the African Cup of Nations. Chelsea is already going to be less effected by that tournament than others, but it will make the health of the goalkeeping department incredibly important regardless. What happens if Mendy is gone and Kepa Arrizabalaga gets ill or injured? It is worth thinking about.

The two main contenders outside of the Blues for the Premier League will feel the strain of the tournament though differently. It will provide opportunities too. The inevitable exposures that come with international travel and a tournament bringing people from 50 different countries with varying levels of illness together will make it even harder. Liverpool, for instance, will lose its two most important and decisive attackers to the tournament. Neither one will be a substitute or squad player. The performances of Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah will go a long way toward determining the success of their respective nations in football’s best international tournament. The stress of that both on their bodies and minds moving forward will effect Liverpool this season.

Man City will lose only Riyad Mahrez, but the Algerian winger has already made 24 appearances for the Citizens, scoring 12 and assisting five. He is incredibly productive for them and will be missed mightily. An honest glance needs to be made at Man City and the comparisons the Blues have made to the Citizens in this year’s title tilt. There was a 17-point gap last season and Chelsea added only one major piece in the summer during a year that it will be competing on the Champions League-winning-earned five fronts (six if you include the UEFA Super Cup).

The truth is it’s an oddly ill-balanced squad for such a host of crazy circumstances. Six trophy chances, AFCON and COVID all in the same year? The squad is going to be stretched. The fact remains that when needing a Rolls-Royce of a centerback a couple years ago, the Blues brought in a 35-year-old Thiago Silva and bought two fleety left wingers. They are lucky that it turns out Silva is still  the best central defender in the Premier League. That said, it’s not crazy that a squad built in that manner could suffer. Silva is suffering from very reasonable fatigue-induced niggling injuries. That the house of cards stands on his shoulders is not his fault.

Man City is built differently. The Citizens have two world class, expensive and settled players in every single position. Chelsea has as many good players but they oddly are in about nine positions and playing for a manager who hasn’t coached a full Premier League season yet. Man City’s are a full squad in every way who are all 100 percent bought into a well-oiled machine, culture and organization finely tuned by a manager who has had half a decade and a billion pounds to implement his philosophies. When they didn’t need to add anyone and had just destroyed the league, they added the most effective attacker in it. That’s who Man City is, there’s no shame in having to properly compete with the Citizens.

They are different. Man City is the team to beat and Chelsea’s entitlement to the idea of a title challenge is part of the problem. The Citizens simply don’t have the sort of issues that the Blues have to arrest before they can think of themselves at that level. Winning the Champions League is playing about 14-16 games well enough to edge a victory. Winning the league is entirely different and Man City is dedicated to that in every way. If it has players break rules, they’re benched and replaced by experienced, technically excellent and disciplined professionals who know their roles and their responsibilities.

The Citizens certainly wouldn’t have any players doing poorly timed interviews like Lukaku’s. His interview in which he 100 percent makes inappropriate public comments about the manager, the system and club is an unnecessary distraction. Of course, he has a right to do so. He’s a grown man and can do as he pleases, but it would have been better for it not to happen and he knows it.

Would Jack Grealish come out and do an interview with Piers Morgan disparaging his manager and club in the middle of the season? No, it would never happen. It wouldn’t even be considered. It doesn’t matter when the interview was done or what the translation difficulties are because it should not have happened in the first place. It’s not a huge deal and Chelsea will recover from Lukaku’s comments, but that doesn’t make them somehow something other than a distraction either. It was bad judgement that draws focus away from football, which is where it should be during the season. Interviews are for the Ushuaia terrace or the Fish Shack over cocktails in Ibiza after the season is over. Lukaku would be very well served to make a public statement on the subject the clear this up so it doesn’t snowball into something, dare I say Thibaut Courtois-esque. He’s not that type of player and his reputation shouldn’t have this sort of thing weighing it down. Lukaku is a good man and a good professional—he can show that with a statement.

Of course, Chelsea does have reason to feel frustrated by injuries, but every club will have them. That’s the game. It’s not chess. I actually wish Tuchel would stop talking about it publicly. I think that provides excuses to the team mentally. “Well I guess we are suffering with a lot of injuries” is in the back of players’ minds rather than “no matter what we get results.”

That said, certain realities must be acknowledged.

It hurts the side massively that Ben Chilwell is injured. When he went down with his injury, he was the best left back in world football. Alphonso Davies was the only one on his level but the Canadian was not playing as complete a game in all three phases while scoring goals, assisting and quietly being the best corner taker in his side. That’s a lightly forgotten thing, by the way. Chilwell took the Blues’ corners with his left foot from the right as in-swingers. This—when coupled with his angled delivery, as well as the spin and pace provided by his technique when striking the lower outside quadrant of the ball—are incredibly hard to read for a goalkeeper while also providing multiple attacking windows for our attackers across the face of the goal. We were more of a threat from set-pieces with his delivery. Chilwell’s injury is nothing short of devastating because of how well he was playing. Any team with a player playing that well would miss them.

That brings us to the next point. Marcos Alonso simply is not that player anymore and an addition needs to be made in January. He had years of playing at a level higher than what people thought of him and didn’t deserve half the criticism he drew during that time. The Spaniard has proven doubters wrong countless times, but people can now see the difference between he and Chilwell.

Is it not obvious that having a wingback who plays a fantastic and fascinating technical inside left forward—but does not have the ability to track back without sacrificing attacking positioning, beat a man going forward or tackle in transition consistently—is not as good for the team? How is that not plain as day? It should be. Chelsea’s goal record suggests it in both directions. With Alonso, Chelsea concedes more and scores fewer. He’s a good player capable of occasional moments of poetry but he’s not Chilwell and that’s the problem.

Reece James’ injury is, of course, another issue. He has a torn hamstring is out for about two months. Digest that quickly and move on. His combination of delivery, defensive acumen, technical play and strength are going to be missed. You can always hope for a miracle but planning for one is stupid. The entire system is built on wingback play. Without it, things will be massively different and that needs to accepted. Chelsea had the best wingback pairing in the world three weeks ago and looked like the best team in Europe. Without them, the Blues are a bog standard expensively assembled side that will need to find a new identity. The previous one was built on the play of Chilwell and James. There are options but playing the old way instead of adapting is not one.

The Liverpool match is important and already has the makings of a midseason six-pointer and title decider. That’s why you play in this league. It’s why the the best and most ambitious managers inevitably end up in it. That’s why it’s the best one. It’s the most physically and mentally taxing one in the world and it is relentless, aggressive, beautiful and weird. That’s the point and if anybody at the club feels differently, their resumes will have a great and prestigious name in the experience column when they apply to careers in the Bundesliga or Ligue 1. Chelsea can beat Liverpool and it should. The Blues still have the ability to do so and they shouldn’t even think of conceding the title now. That would be pathetic and in my opinion, a fireable offense. They are eight points back with 54 to play for. Three of those are against City next month. Win that. Surely no one thought we were just going to stroll our way through magically without having to prove ourselves? Surely?

Making excuses and whining about problems that come with the territory of high-level footballing competition is not going to be the thing that gets them there. COVID is real. These are the COVID years and they’re hard. Sure, we accept that but it’s time to adapt and overcome. This is Chelsea Football Club the goal is to win every game. There are other clubs with other attitudes but that’s the philosophy at this one.

The follow up to this piece will suggest solutions both tactically and in the transfer market to fix things moving forward after the Liverpool match.