Any hope that Mauricio Pochettino’s appointment would solve the Blues’ problems has evaporated, but the club’s issues transcend the new head coach
Everyone associated with Chelsea Football Club would have hoped that things couldn’t get any worse than last term’s 12th-placed finish at the end of a harrowing campaign, but six games into the 2023-24 season, the Blues have hit a new low. One win, two defeats and three draws leaves the west Londoners languishing in 14th position in the Premier League, with Carabao Cup victories over AFC Wimbledon and Brighton offering little reprieve.
It is arguably now approaching two years since we have seen Chelsea at their best domestically, and it has been a story of cause and effect ever since. But who is responsible for this seemingly never-ending period of mediocrity and malaise?
GOAL assesses who must shoulder their share of the blame for the Blues’ woes, as Mauricio Pochettino looks to pick up the pieces.
Thomas Tuchel & his former employers
It may seem a stretch to attribute blame for Chelsea’s current predicament to those who worked at the club more than 12 months ago, but such has been the Blues’ downturn in form since Christmas 2021 that their involvement must be interrogated.
Nine out of 10 Chelsea supporters would be delighted to still have Tuchel in the dugout, but he is not above reproach. The biggest failure of his tenure was his inability to get the best out of a host of expensive, highly-regarded attacking players during his tenure, including Kai Havertz, Timo Werner, Christian Pulisic and Romelu Lukaku.
That recent history has created a pressurised environment for Chelsea’s forwards and seems to have contributed to a defeatist mentality in that department.
Former Chelsea director Marina Granovskaia’s failure to tie the likes of Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen and Mason Mount down to new contracts has also proven to be damaging, with an overhaul of the defence not exactly successful to this point and Mount – a shining success story of the academy – forcing a move to Manchester United in the summer, much to the chagrin of the fanbase.
The co-owners
Unequivocally, Chelsea co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have been agents of chaos since completing their takeover in May 2022, and there is very little doubt that the Blues would not be in their current predicament had oligarch Roman Abramovich not been forced to sell his beloved asset in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A series of questionable leadership decisions have followed, including Boehly appointing himself as sporting director last summer and subsequently overspending on the unsuccessful signings Kalidou Koulibaly and Marc Cucurella.
Indeed, their unabashed spending and commitment to overhauling the squad has contributed to an atmosphere of constant upheaval and a state of flux in every department, as managers, coaches and players alike make their way through the revolving door.
Perhaps their biggest mistake to date was relieving hugely popular, Champions League-winning head coach Tuchel of his duties and replacing him with Graham Potter, with the situation only deteriorating from that point onwards.
Their hands-on approach has drifted towards being overbearing at times as they skulk into the dressing room at full-time after a bad result, with Boehly allegedly berating the squad and calling them “embarrassing” during Frank Lampard’s spell in temporary charge.
The sporting directors
Paul Winstanley and Lawrence Stewart’s respective arrivals during last season generated a lot of excitement that Chelsea’s record of hit-and-miss transfer dealings would be consigned to history, with the former joining from the revered Brighton recruitment team.
However, things have not gone as many would have expected. The Blues were accused of deploying a scattergun approach in the January window with Winstanley and Stewart heavily involved but not yet installed in their roles as co-sporting directors, spending more than £300m ($367m) on eight new players including £89m ($109m) on Mykhailo Mudryk – who is yet to come anywhere close to justifying that price-tag – and £107m ($131m) on Enzo Fernandez.
Although Nicolas Jackson impressed in pre-season, the decision not to pursue an elite striker with a proven goal-scoring record has been thrust into the spotlight as the Senegal international struggles to adapt to the Premier League.
Their policy of only pursuing players under the age of 25 has also raised eyebrows, with the likes of James Maddison and James Ward-Prowse overlooked in the summer and now shining for two of the club’s London rivals. Indeed, Chelsea ultimately spent more than the fees that pair commanded on far less experienced names in Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia.
It has also been reported that the Blues declined to pursue Declan Rice – seemingly a long-term target for the club – because he would cost an ‘English premium’. Moises Caicedo was subsequently signed from Brighton for a British-record £115m ($141m) – £5m ($6m) more than Arsenal paid West Ham for Rice.
Although they have hacked down their wage bill, Chelsea are yet to see a tangible payoff for their mass summer clear-out, with no fewer than 23 departures contributing to an overarching sense of chaos and upheaval. After a nightmarish 2022-23 campaign, the Blues’ form hasn’t been much better so far in the new season.
Graham Potter
It’s difficult to know exactly where Potter went wrong in his ill-fated time in charge, but he certainly failed to endear himself to the Chelsea faithful.
Accustomed to the snarling, competitive edge of the likes of Tuchel, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, Potter’s ‘nice guy’ approach wasn’t well received by an impatient fanbase.
The decision to ostracise Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang – one of very few natural goal-scorers in the squad – also backfired as Havertz flattered to deceive as a lone striker throughout the season.
Finally, despite being boosted by a host of January signings, Potter never got the best out of the majority of his new arrivals, although he understandably struggled to juggle a bloated squad.
Frank Lampard
If ever Chelsea diehard fans choose to scrutinise it, the brazen PR stunt of reappointing club legend Lampard – who was sacked by relegation-threatened Everton in January this year having failed to win a league match since October 2022 – was a grave error.
It’s obviously not his fault that he was selected for the interim role following Potter’s sacking, but the failure to make any impact whatsoever certainly is. Indeed, he inherited a squad packed full of players who would have had the dark days of his first spell fresh in their memories – when many reportedly complained about a lack of communication and empathy and were sceptical of his tactics.
Having fought to reach the quarter-finals under Potter, the Blues threw away their only chance at silverware as they were knocked out of the Champions League with a whimper against a sub-par Real Madrid side, and they managed only a solitary win in the league under Lampard as morale sunk to an all-time low.
Justifiably, Lampard often pointed to the bloated squad and suggested that some players had already checked out, but the best coaches are able to recover those kinds of situations and galvanise their charges. Indeed, there is little doubt that the malaise that engulfed the club has seeped into the new campaign.
The medical department
For more than a year now, serious injuries to key players have undermined the work of head coaches and recruitment staff at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea spent lengthy periods without the likes of Reece James, N’Golo Kante, Mason Mount, and Wesley Fofana throughout the 2022-23 campaign, which led to an overhaul of the medical department as their medical director and head physio were relieved of their duties.
Somehow, though, their fitness issues have deepened at the start of the new season.
Pochettino has been unable to call upon around half of those players who would normally be first-team regulars so far in 2023-24, with James, Fofana, Carney Chukwuemeka, Christopher Nkunku and Romeo Lavia’s absences particularly keenly felt. The latter two are yet to make their competitive debuts for the club.
It would be remiss to blame Chelsea’s medical department for all of these problems, but the fact that a number of players including Benoit Badiashile, Ben Chilwell and James have been out with long-term muscle injuries suggests that something is not quite right behind the scenes in terms of conditioning and recovery.
Mauricio Pochettino
It’s early days for Pochettino, and there is no doubt that he has inherited many of Chelsea’s long-standing problems, but he is not above reproach.
Although his iteration of the Blues have statistically been improved in each department in isolation, his selections and tactical set-up have raised question marks.
A number of players have been shoehorned into unfamiliar roles, such as centre-back Levi Colwill, and there is a feeling that some players who have not been getting minutes would help to improve their fortunes.
Of course, Pochettino’s questionable decision-making is mitigated by the fact he has been hamstrung by a crippling injury crisis, but he is passing up opportunities to play to the strengths of those who are available.
The players
When three highly-regarded managers all struggle in the same role in the space of 12 months, then it’s obvious that a number of the club’s deep-rooted issues transcend them.
Chelsea’s expensively-assembled playing staff must shoulder plenty of the blame for the club’s problems in recent times. Almost every member of the squad has underperformed for an extended period, and standards were widely reported to have dropped to an all-time low at the backend of 2022-23, with the Blues left with nothing to play for.
Given Chelsea’s eye-watering expenditure on both transfer fees and wages (less so the latter in recent times), the level and commitment the team has shown on and off the field simply isn’t good enough. The summer clear-out was aimed at remedying that, and morale is certainly improved, but footballing performances are yet to catch up.
