After being crowned the Champions of Europe, the Blues were expected to go on and challenge for the Premier League title next. But Manchester City were a class apart with Chelsea trailing by 19 points at the end of the season.
However all the goals and objectives were set aside as the climax of the season turned out to be quite turbulent. Roman Abramovich was set to lose control of the club that he built over the last two decades. His assets were frozen and the club didn’t know if they’d have enough funds to sustain the 2021-22 campaign.
Chelsea head coach Thomas Tuchel has said he is willing to “drive a seven-seater” to Lille for his side’s #UCL round-of-16 clash due to travel sanctions imposed on the club. pic.twitter.com/wquHzrcxfS
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) March 13, 2022
Thomas Tuchel was a brave man indeed. And his team did not let him down. Those last few weeks, every time that these boys stepped onto the pitch they gave their everything. The team showed real character and did not let the fans down.
After heavy research, Mr. Abramovich decided to sell the club to BlueCo – a consortium fronted by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital. Todd Boehly’s team were up for the challenge but the fan’s love for the Russian was set to question every move.
And the sanctions were bound to have its consequences on the club. We lost defensive pillars and team leaders in Antonio Rudiger, Marcos Alonso and Andreas Christensen for free jeopardizing the squad’s depth and hierarchy.
The owners also decided to part ways with the team that works off the field which included key figures like Petr Cech and ‘The Iron Lady’ Marina Granovskaia. The new custodians wanted their own people in charge to work towards the fresh vision. A move which will probably save Chelsea as new FFP issues arose recently scrutinizing alleged payments which are connected to our former owner.
The new team went all out in the transfer market landing a bunch of new faces. And the Chels’ faithful seemed excited until the German Head Coach was sacked out of nowhere. Apparently the vision didn’t align and he had to go.
He was replaced by the talented English Head Coach who had worked wonders at Brighton & Hove Albion. So Chelsea now had a very fresh squad led by Potter’s team with fresh ideas. And in spite of a very positive start, the system began to look like a drop structure in no time. Potter simply couldn’t put points on the board taking the Blues to the bottom half of the table.
The recruitment staff went all in again signing multiple wonderkids and world class players in the winter transfer window to help Chelsea move up the table again. The likes of Enzo Fernandez, Joao Felix, Mykhailo Mudryk, Benoit Badiashile and Noni Madueke were expected to impact the results but the Gaffer struggled to put this team together and was eventually sacked. Bruno Saltor and Frank Lampard played their part in the latter stage of the season dealing with the insoluble dilemma.