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
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
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
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
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