Tactics and Transfers: Escaping January and preparing for Chelsea’s future

Chelsea beat Tottenham 2-0 on Sunday in the Premier League. The Blues were lucky to play Spurs before the two-week break as Tottenham appears to be the only team they can beat at the moment. The club is not in a good place right now, even if it beat Antonio Conte’s Tottenham Hotspur three times this month. A team who is known for a lack of spine and appears to be stuck in yet another one of its manager’s point-proving exercises is not the sort of side that champions rest their laurels on.

That is the goal, isn’t it? To be champions in every competition, every single year? To win every single game as unrealistic as that is for a football club? One must always remember that excellence is achieved more in the pursuit than the goal. A lot of mistakes were made over the course of the past month and there’s not really a single member of the staff at Stamford Bridge who can hope to avoid responsibility for that.

Chelsea escaped January, but it’s now time to look at the future of the club

Thomas Tuchel has had the first rocky spell of his time at Stamford Bridge. His questionable personnel decisions and tactics have shown the first cracks in the generally perfect German’s facade. Though he was going to need to prove to be human at some point, this was the worst possible time for him to expose such traits.

Romelu Lukaku showed his true colors and his comments 100 percent had a negative impact on the dressing room. Chelsea’s locker room is dominated by homegrown personalities and long-time members of the side who are proud of the club, the community and their place in it. Lukaku—who hasn’t achieved anything close to the level of success as many of his teammates—slandering the club (and in doing so, his teammates and their achievements) has obviously had a lasting effect.

Even if not because of the impact on the dressing room, simply the effect that the additional pressure has had on Lukaku has been very dangerous and completely affected his play. He just hasn’t looked good since the comments were made. His only goal since was against National League-level opposition. If you’re not familiar with that division, don’t worry, neither was I until recently. It’s the fifth tier in the English footballing pyramid. Lukaku has added a huge amount of pressure to his own shoulders through his own sheer, unbridled idiocy and it looks like it’s crushing him. It really is a shame. One can only hope he has the character to pull himself out of it.

All of this, along with the injuries and COVID-19 cases that have been strangling the club for months, brings into direct view the failures of those in recruitment to find a solution to the left back issue. Though, this is coupled with Tuchel’s failure to find a new tactic to suit the side, as well, it is still relevant. Ben Chilwell was injured on November 23; that’s over two months ago. The Blues have looked completely different since that moment. It’s not as if they didn’t know they had to do something in January. Yet, nothing has been achieved and the side will likely go into the second half of the season in the same bad shape it is in now. It’s unacceptable.

Anyone who knows anything about football accepts that the January transfer window is a bad time to do business. Players have no time to bed into their new squads, teams ask for unrealistic sums because the only reason clubs are trying to buy in January is because they’re desperate and the player only has half a season to make an impact in the first place. It’s a mess. That said, Chelsea should have done something by now. The fact that the Blues haven’t is incredibly telling about what their intentions are going forward.