What Happened to Chelsea?

The 2011-2012 season was a turbulent one for Chelsea fans to say the least.  It is impossible to gauge all the factors that influenced one of the most confusing seasons in the history of Chelsea Football club, but I have some theories. Indulge me.

There is something that I want to get out of the way at the very beginning: I am a big fan of Andre Villas-Boas. It might seem unusual that I would say I regret that he was sacked considering the end that Chelsea had to their season, but I wish he was still at the helm. The bottom line for this club that has risen so quickly to Europe’s elite is that the foundational players that got the team where they are now, are aging; and although the final push this season could not have been done without them, there has to be a transition. I believe Villas-Boas was the man to do that job. I’m not saying Di Matteo is incapable of doing it, but changing Managers halfway through a season sets you back at square one again. Perhaps AVB went about the transition too quickly and laid the massive weight of a world-class club on the fragile shoulders of Chelsea’s new and surprisingly young players, but the fact remains that he was doing something that previous managers had been unwilling to try. With Drogba already gone, Malouda being ousted, and Lampard showing signs of age, the time is now to make the transition and it worries me slightly that Di Matteo had to rely so heavily on those players to get the results he did, although we can’t really judge a coach that was given two or so months to turn round the fortunes of a struggling club.

So what was Chelsea’s problem in the first half of the season? And what triggered a turn-around that gave the club their first ever Champions League trophy? Firstly I have to state my belief that players can have a much larger impact on a team than the coach; if they choose to. Picture a team that has won the Premier League several times as well as the FA and Carling Cup, thanks, not so much to any particular coach, as Chelsea have changed coaches so often over the years, but to the incredible performances of Terry, Drogba, Lampard, Cole, and many other veteran players. Now picture those players taking the backseat to newer, younger players in a matter of weeks. Those veteran players were slow to offer their crucial leadership qualities and experience to a coach who threatened their positions in a club they had worked so hard to build. The younger players were given too much responsibility too quickly and the club crumbled from within. Despite the best efforts of AVB, he could only do so much, the players, whether consciously or not, lacked the resolve required to win top-flight games.

I don’t pretend to know what happened within the dressing rooms at this club during the closing days of AVB’s reign and into the transitional period that saw Chelsea make a complete turn in form, but from what I saw from the players after that, I have my suspicions. When Di Matteo took over he gave a majority of the leadership and decision making powers to those players that had been with the club for so long and knew how best to win as a club. The time I saw the Chelsea I knew consistently playing the traditional Chelsea style was when Di Matteo took over. Why? Perhaps partially because Di Matteo had been with the club for so long, but also because the veteran players were calling the shots, whereas before, AVB was.  Watch the FA cup final. When did we see those players that united before in this season. Watch the Barcelona semi-final or even the Bayern Munich final, although Chelsea didn’t play the style to get good press clippings, they played together and they played the way they knew would win them the game.

So the bottom line for the club is this: A transition is needed, everyone knows that. With the purchase of Hazard and Marin and Oscar, as well as Sturridge and Ramires recently, Abromavich is clearly showing where his priorities lie, especially with his long-standing habit of buying top class players that are already well into their careers. We have already seen that for the transition to work it must be done more slowly than AVB initially thought (I think he had it figured out, but clearly it was too late) and Di Matteo might just be the man for the job as he showed his remarkable instincts in choosing a rotation in the squad that was requisite for the remarkable amount of games the team played in such a short amount of time. Hopefully this transition takes place. Personally, I hate seeing these veteran players that have immortalized themselves in my mind become old and be replaced, but I also realize that is the way football is and I am finding a slight excitement for the new generation of Blues.

Joga Bonito

Dallin

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

I diverge from my two-part series for this post. The second half will be posted shortly.

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

#1- A coach can make a big difference, but the players ultimately decide a team’s fate.

I don’t intend to embark on anything close to discussing the Andre Villas-Boas sacking and all that led to it. That is a topic for a different post; but who can argue that Chelsea have made an incredible turnaround in a matter of days? After dropping points in numerous league clashes with lesser sides and standing at the brink of elimination from the Champions League and FA cup, Chelsea turned round their fortunes by nabbing two league wins and forcing decisive victories against Birmingham and Napoli to progress in the FA cup and Champions League, respectively. Many would venture to mark this renewal at the Bridge as evidence that AVB needed the sack and once he was gone and Roberto Di Matteo stepped in, the rot that had been causing Cobham to stink so badly was finally on the mend. Similar situations were witnessed at Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was sacked and Avram Grant took the helm for the remainder of the season as well as when Luiz Felipe Scolari was shown the door and the ever-popular Guus Hiddink called the shots until the end of the season.

Of course, a coach makes a load of difference, but I would venture to guess that in some situations, especially those in which the players often exert an incredible amount of influence in the dressing room on account of their experience and personality (such as the case at Chelsea), the players may have even more pull than the coach. Call me crazy, but there was a very visible and distinct difference in not just the playing style of Chelsea, but also the attitude and moral of the team from under the last days of the Villas-Boas reign to these first few days of life under Di Matteo. To take it one step further, Chelsea’s performance against Stoke in their second game under the interim manager was dismal; the player’s attitudes reminding me of the previous weeks under AVB. The coach made some difference but it was the players that needed to change to gain big wins over Napoli and Leicester City.

To make my point clear, I take you back to when Chelsea played Manchester City earlier this season. I saw a Chelsea side that made me long for previous winning seasons. AVB was still there, and I highly doubt he completely changed his coaching style for the second half of that match, but the players changed their outlook and got the 3 points they were looking for, playing a style that was so familiar from their previous title-winning seasons, a style that Villas-Boas had never even tried at the club. I saw many similarities between the home and away fixtures these clubs played this season. Unluckily, Chelsea fell short in the latter one, but they played much the same because they decided to.

#2- You can pay for talented players, but you cannot pay for class.

Don’t worry, not all my points will be as long as the first. Me being a Chelsea fan put aside, I was extremely disappointed with some of the performances made by Manchester City players in Tuesday’s game. First: I am sure I was not the only one to see Toure push Mata in the face and kick him when he did not even have possession of the ball. There is absolutely no reason for that, and it goes to show that talent does not always equal class on the soccer pitch. Second: It is no secret that Mario Balotelli has a sketchy attitude, at best, but seeing him give up several times on chasing a loose ball for no apparent reason, and rarely show any desire to be on the pitch was only affirmation that a paycheck does not determine if you are going to get a good showing from your stars.

My third and final example is (do I really want to start this conversation?) Carlos Tevez. The form and length of his punishment is not my decision to make and I admit he did have to sit out for a while, but after what he did to that club, and continued to do after his first offense would have been more than enough for me to give him the sack, and I cannot believe that they put him back on the field, and to applause! If this was the first and only time something like this had happened in his career it would be different, but isn't that why he left Manchester United? Don’t be surprised to see similar outbursts from the “superstar” in the future. Manchester City have certainly paid for bags of talent but in the process have been unable to harness the class required for world-class squad. Why do you think they have been knocked out of two European competitions this season? Because raw skill alone cannot compete against teams that have skill and class.

#3- A player’s form and confidence can change in a very short period of time, and just because a substitution has worked in many games does not mean it will work in every game.

I bet you can’t guess who I’m talking about. I was never one to give up on Fernando Torres. His motivation was never lacking, or his work ethic. What was lacking was his confidence. I will speak more on him in another post, but that confidence was vastly improved as a result of his two goal two assist showing in the FA cup. He was looking extremely sharp and for every minute his regular hard working self in the Manchester City game, even coming back on numerous occasions to play defense. In so many situations in the past, Didier Drogba has been brought on as a substitute in the closing minutes of a game (often for Torres himself) and has changed the course of the game into a win. I do not doubt his immense skill, but it was only five minutes after the bringing on of Drogba for Torres that Manchester City staged their comeback. I feel the substitution was a deciding factor in the outcome of the match.

As well, from the look on Torres' face when he was being brought off, it was a blow to the player's confidence when he was doing so absolutely well. A substitution working many times in the past does not warrant it to work every time, and each game and substitution decision needs to be made in context and taking into consideration the current performance of the player on the field, and the difference he is making.

Joga Bonito

Dallin