2022 will go down as one of most memorable seasons in Chelsea’s history, but not necessarily for the right reasons.
We entered the year on the back of a winter of discontent, hampered by injuries to key players such as Ben Chilwell, Reece James, N’Golo Kante and Romelu Lukaku and a general exhaustion following an obscene number of matches and an exposed squad depth consequently.
Thomas Tuchel did his best impression of King Canute, but even he knew that a challenge for the Premier League title disappeared amidst the fog of winter. The gloom was lifted in February as Chelsea and Tuchel succeeded where Rafa Benitez had failed, and Chelsea lifted the FIFA Club World Cup to become Club World Champions for the first time. Finally, we had won it all and we were Champions of the World, (na na na na na na na na na)!
We were hopeful that a second trophy would be added when we faced Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final, but as Kepa’s penalty in the shoot-out sailed towards Cricklewood, our minds were still on the bombshell that had landed the day before. Roman Abramovich was to stand down as the owner of Chelsea with a view to selling the club. The world as we had known it for nearly 20 years was about to end.
The team and Tuchel in particular coped manfully, even more so when the Club’s assets were frozen by the Government when Abramovich was targeted for sanctions. The club had no access to money and the usual operational practices afforded to an elite European club. No problem, Tuchel was prepared to drive the team to away fixtures in a mini-bus if needs be. None of us doubted him.
Reaching another FA Cup final, finishing 3rd in the Premier League and being knocked out of the Champions’ League by eventual winners Real Madrid only after a brain fart from Mendy cost us in the home leg before we hammered them 3-2 in the away leg, was by any measurement some achievement in an ultimately a disappointing season.
The subtext to all of this was the disruptive and unsettling ‘bidding process’ from prospective new owners. It all seemed very unseemly, like the club was a cheap cut of meat in a meat market, and was worsened by the pressure and threats being exerted by a Government taking too much pleasure in inflicting as much pain and heartache as they could on the club and it’s supporters. Chelsea was clearly a pawn in a much bigger game than football.
Come June and a new era dawned as the Todd Boehly Consortium (I still think this sounds like a 1970’s Prog Rock group!) took the reigns as only the fourth owners in the club’s 117-year history.
Throughout the bidding process, platitudes and promises were made to various supporters’ groups; all taken at face value. However, the new regime’s start to their tenure has hardly been auspicious.
Key members of the Abramovich regime soon left, unsurprising in the case of Bruce Buck and Guy Laurence, but unfortunate in the case of Marina Granovskaia and Petr Cech considering Chelsea were about to enter the summer transfer window with an imperative to sort out key player problem areas if we were to mount a realistic challenge for trophies this season.
Todd Boehly was by necessity thrust into the position of de facto Director of Football and while not stunning, the transfer business seemed to address many of the problem areas. Deadwood was shipped out and in general most bases were covered apart from perhaps the most important missing ingredient – a creative goalscoring attacking midfielder to fill the gaps left by players such as Cesc Fabregas, Frank Lampard and Eden Hazard.
And then, with the season barely five weeks old, another bombshell. The new owners sacked Thomas Tuchel. Yes, the relationship had soured, and results were well below par and there was a disconnect in terms of the future direction of the club, but Tuchel was/is clearly one of the elite European coaches and in the space of 18 months had won the Champions’ League, UEFA Super Cup, FIFA Club World Cup, reached a Carabao Cup final and two FA Cup finals and finished 3rd and 4th in the Premier League.
It felt like complete madness and to be honest it still does. Tuchel was replaced by Brighton’s Graham Potter the next day.
There is much to like about Graham Potter and it is laudable that the owners are willing to give a young English coach a chance at this level; but Thomas Tuchel he ain’t. It represented a massive departure from Chelsea’s ideology of the last 20 years in hiring elite European coaches or to be precise, winners. The appointment of Potter can only be viewed as a huge gamble with the club’s future, even more so as we are assured that he is here for the long term no matter what the results are or lack thereof.
Again, some of this is refreshing given the previous owner’s extreme lack of patience and hair trigger finger. But it is hard to argue with the results when you look back at 20 trophies in as many years: more than any English club over the same period. The counter argument of course is that it was a period of ‘chaos and trophies’ and the club was never allowed to develop and grow sustainably, a strategy the new owners are keen to pursue.
Of course time will tell on this point and with the club currently 8th in the Premier League, out of the Carabao Cup and facing the same opposition in the FA Cup in January, there is a good chance that we could be entering unchartered territory with a trophyless season and a mid-table finish with the coach being rewarded with a stay of execution rather than a P45.
Given that success on the pitch leads to success on the balance sheet and that we are now owned by businessmen not rich playboys, it will be interesting to see how long they stick before they twist.
The great irony in all of this is that Chelsea had the perfect manager to execute Boehly’s strategy of growing organically, sustainably, adding world class stars to home grown talent and being patient in terms of tangible success.
In 2019, banned from buying players in the transfer market and without star player Eden Hazard, Chelsea had to make do and mend and turned to arguably the one manager who would pick up the phone: Frank Lampard. Not only did Lampard bring through the likes of Mason Mount and Reece James, now bedrocks of the current side, he reached the FA Cup final and finished 4th in the Premier League, thereby securing Champions’ League football for the following season.
Of course, Roman’s patience ran out shortly after that and Tuchel replaced him, but one wonders what might have happened had Boehly been in charge with Frank Lampard as coach. Would he have been given time to prove he could mould a new type of Chelsea, a Chelsea that appears to align with Boehly’s vision?
Of course, we’ll never know, but one thing is for certain, most Chelsea supporters would be prepared to give Frank Lampard the time to turn the vision into reality, no matter the results on the pitch, especially if a healthy number of home grown players were getting game time.
For the many of us who want Potter (and Boehly for that matter) to succeed, I can’t see Potter getting the latitude from the supporters afforded to Lampard. Not his fault of course, that’s just the way of the supporter where connection and sentiment often overrides pragmatism. It is going to be very hard to wean supporters off the habit of success and winning trophies mainlined to us over the last 20 years. Entitlement is a powerful drug indeed.
Wherever we stand on Potter, Boehly and patience, I do hope that the ‘baby is not thrown out with the bath water’. It is often tempting for new owners to change everything and stamp their identity on proceedings early and quickly.
The reality is that not everything about the previous regime was flawed and broken. Taking Chelsea from a club on the periphery of title challenges to 5 times Premier League champions, double Champions’ League winners and, indeed, Champions of the World has much to commend it. Clearly there is no need to erase this history and culture and adopt a ‘year zero’ approach. Better to take what was good and fix what needs to be fixed, build on the success and the winning mentality that now runs through the DNA of the club and develop it to achieve even greater heights going forward.
Within a year or two we’ll know how this will all pan out one way or another. Whether we and Todd Boehly have the patience for it is another matter.
I’d like to thank you all for your support this year, whether it has been reading my articles in cfcuk or in Football.London or listening to the Chelsea FanCast. Always very much appreciated. I would like to wish a very merry Christmas and a happy and successful New Year to all of you, except the morons who troll Mason Mount on social media, who can all cfcuk off!
Up the Chels!
First published in cfcuk fanzine December 2022
