In this perfect storm of a season ‘The Reverend’ Tony Glover from the Podding Shed Podcast can see a path clear to calmer waters…
It’s been a long time. In fact it’s been several years since I put pen to …errr…I mean finger to keyboard to write about Chelsea and its fortunes. But for all the podcasts and tweets, sometimes it’s just good to have time to think about what you want to say with regard this club we all loyally and sometimes inexplicably follow over l
and and sea (and Leicester).
Perhaps my ‘break’ from writing came from the fact that it started under the trophy starved reign of Claudio Ranieri and finished sometime on 2012 after a Champions League thriller in Munich. I suspect at that point I thought I’d seen everything there was to see and the lack of pain snuffed out the inspiration to write. Aren’t all the best songs written in angst? Indeed, on a real ale jolly boys train journey last year, when speaking with the ‘Archbishop’ Stamford Chidge we laughed together at the post-Munich thought of retiring as Chelsea fans to sit in cricket grounds slowly rusting through the late afternoons of our lives. Then we got totally ‘socially relaxed’ and of course the idea was gone.
But this season, especially for the older lags among us, has been a curious journey of blip turning to decline turning to doom, moving to faint hope then dashed hope topped with a generous measure of masochistic nostalgia and a sense of foreboding lavishly topped with déjà vu. Anyone over 35 will have memories of FA Cup final defeats, and indeed 2 if not 3 wins. But never ‘The Title’ unless you fall into the very old lag age group and can remember Roy Bentley’s team conquering the old Division 1. For the younger ones, and I know I’m generalizing, it has possibly felt like the end. It’s all over. Chelsea is gravely ill. This doesn’t happen on my X-box/Playstation/Gearwear/brain chip implant copy of FIFA 16! How can a club with so much success become so dismal at times, with few great moments and for the best part only reaching heights of distinct mediocrity? Don’t worry, we’ve seen far worse, and I believe we will see great times again, possibly as soon as next season.
The inconvenient truth is we’re rubbish. A mid table side at best. And even removing that awful start and averaging the form under Guus Hiddink from last August we might just be tapping the door of the top 4. All of this coinciding with the oddest season the Premiership has encountered. I think there are reasons why we’ve ended up like this.
One only has to look at the decline overall since that magnificent Munich night. From the top of the club to ….err…..the interim coaches …be honest they have all been interim… there has been a notable failure to transition from the fantastic Mourinho squad from 2004 into something that could continue that success and put the fear of God into any team across Europe. This has mainly been down to the trigger happy persona of our owner, a man who presumably has a steely cold poker face when doing business, but who sacks coaches at the first sign of trouble or maybe even boredom.
When Roman Abramovich took over in 2003, one of the first things he did was to hire Peter Kenyon, in fact headhunt him from Manchester United. Kenyon, a 
dyed in the wool United fan, was also a business man and a football person. He knew the business and the sport. And he knew how to make them work together as separate entities rather than as a conjoined single entity. Success on the pitch would mean success off the pitch. He was right. Since he left, it looks like someone has persuaded Roman that other route was best. That or possibly Roman found himself not being able to trust anyone else to have that vision over both aspects. Yes we continued to win trophies, for the most part based on a spine from Mourinho’s early days that contained soul, spirit, passion, desire and never knowing when it was beaten. Since 2012 bit by bit that has been wound down, left to disintegrate slowly but surely. Players were bought in but were either cowed by the boo boys or un-fancied by the succession of interim coaches who deep inside knew they’d never get the chance to build a Fergie like dynasty. In fact that trigger happy culture has spread to the fans in varying degrees, including me. Ivanovic has a bad start to the season and I’m calling for him to be despatched forthwith. Then JT and Zouma get injured and we turn to …Ivanovic who for the most part as shown he is well equipped to do the centre back role. There’s fickle and then there’s irrational. All fans are one or the other to varying degrees during any season.
Over the years the list of players out reads like a horror story, and yes good ones have come in, but proportionately not to the same numbers or the same ability and potential. Even the ones Jose shipped out reads like a list of shame. I, like many, loved David Luiz; he entertained and dropped the odd ricket, but he could have been developed. One thing I’m sure of was he had the right stuff to be the next captain. But £50m is £50m except when you don’t bring in anyone close to his ability or containing his desire to win and passion for the club. Felipe Luis was and is an accomplished left back who can also cross the ball, but Jose had put the square peg into the round hole by putting Azpilicueta (right back) to play at left back, and despite limitations forcing him to cut in when bombing down the wing he made a very decent fist of it. But was it as good as when Ashley Cole was there? Not in my view. The list goes on of players under Jose allowed to move on and be replaced for the most part by lesser footballers. I hold the view that Jose had been suckered into thinking he would get the chance to deliver that legacy, which isn’t a known strength for him. He probably thought he could transition the side with the sales and buys, but it failed. Just as if you remove the engine and the wheels and the seats from an Aston Martin and replace them with equivalent Lada parts (teenagers, google Lada), they’ll still work just not as well or as comfortable as before. You’d hardly be surprised if young Billy Leicester in his customized Escort RS2000 left you standing at the lights. Jose knew the spine was ageing, and I have no doubt he wanted to replace it with something better, but it was beyond him and time ran out.
Like everything old, there eventually comes a time when it needs replacing. People talk about succession planning, but one thing 99% of people are bad at is succession planning. We all wait until something is finally broken before we replace it. Then we go through the pain of replacement. I believe, with the gift of 20:20 hindsight that I’m blessed with, as are all of you, that this type of season was inevitable at some point given the chaos theory of management and governance we’ve adopted at Chelsea since 2003.
This can be rectified though, and not by throwing the baby out with the bathwater and replacing an entire squad with kids as some seem to suggest, usually when 
they’ve extricated themselves from their X-boxes or watching porn in their adult nappies. The first thing is employing a manager with experience of re-building a team and a club’s fortunes. Someone who knows how the Director of Football and club governance committee method works. The days of overall power for managers at a club will be gone the day Wenger leaves Arsenal. Considering the rate at which we’ve burned through managers along with other top clubs, it’s no surprise that someone with the required attributes is now on a diminishing list of people. He needs to be strong and focused to the point where the players will fear, respect, love and hate him at the same time. He’ll need big balls to deal with Roman and his cohorts. His word, not the owners nor the Director of Football, or the Chief Executive needs to be the law in the club. Knowing what I’ve learnt about Antonio Conte in the last couple of months, he does seem to be the right fit. Let’s hope it is him and be thankful it isn’t Brendan Rodgers or Pellegrino!
He in turn needs to engage with the fans as well. There is a ‘palpable discord’ (copyright M Emenalo esq) between the fans and elements of the club which a top manager can start to heal. We need someone to believe in and someone who’s philosophy we can buy into. Someone we can trust with the club and who will take it to his hea
rt just as Jose did. Then he can select the squad. I have no insight into who might stay and who might go. The cries for Hazard and Courtois to go are beyond belief. Courtois hasn’t been at his best but every big club would take him and he’s a very good goalkeeper. The last thing we need to do is sell another very good goalkeeper. Same with Hazard, who I suspect has tried to play through injury maybe under pressure from the club. A very good player and I repeat, the last thing we need to do is sell a very good player. So, leave this to the new manager and trust in him to be making for the most part the correct decisions on players and tactics. I include the introduction of youth in that as well. Some deserve a chance, but the idea that a first eleven made of of RLC, Kenedy, Musonda, Traore, Brown, Salter-Clarke et al would finish in the top half is ludicrous.
I have other reasons to be positive about the future. A season out of Europe is something we can easily deal with financially. There’s more money for starters in the Premier League than the Champions League. We can live with that, and treat this season as a painful lesson but not an insurmountable problem. Without the distractions of midweek European games we can look to the top 4 next season, and make a damn good stab at winning back the FA Cup. 4 years is too long without that trophy adorning Stamford Bridge. Achieve one or the other or both and maybe we can be the next Juventus for Mr. Conte. Achieve that and after this train wreck of a season, Antonio Conte has every chance of being another Chelsea legend.
And remember, above all else. WOLUTB…UTC!!!!!
Tony presents the Podding Shed Podcast in which toilers on the allotment of life discuss all things Chelsea. Download it here
Tony will be a guest on the Chelsea FanCast on Monday 21st March
