Chelsea – Let’s be honest…

A level-headed assessment on Chelsea’s troubles at the start of this campaign (contribution article by Billy Young)

Article by Billy Young

As we’re all aware from the constant reminders from friends and rival fans Chelsea currently sit 14th in the Premier League on 5 points from 6 games, with one win, 2 draws and 3 defeats. We have scored just 5 goals and conceding 6 – three of those 5 goals and the only win coming against newly promoted Luton Town – which constitutes to Chelsea’s worst start to a league season since 1978/1979 and by far the worst I have seen in my lifetime.

I used to go to Stamford Bridge with immense confidence that my team would win every game, I now wonder where the next 3 points and even where the next goal is going to come from – confidence is at an all time low and you can feel that from stands/in the fanbase to the players. So what’s the problem at Chelsea right now…?

For me, I think the problem is fairly simple and that is the dynamic of the squad we have assembled – we have gone out and spent a huge amount of money on young talent, but ultimately we have bought a team of boys, not men. Let’s take a look at (in my opinion) Chelsea’s best Premier League team, the 09/10 team under Carlo Ancelotti.

The average age of the above team is 28.8 (29 years old) and just look at the names/characters in that team. Top players with top mentalities, in their prime with bundles of experience who would never let the standards dip the way ours have now. The core/spine of this team is the reason why they were able to compete every year despite the all the managerial changes – a team of men. You would never have an easy game against this Chelsea team and Stamford Bridge was a fortress. Now I know people will argue that football has moved on since this era and it 100% has, but I refuse to believe that the above team wouldn’t be competing for the Premier League title this season. The mentality alone would give them a very strong shout and it lead me to think about what the scoreline would be if our current team played against this one – I know who I’d put my money on…

Now enough with the nostalgia and back to the current Chelsea team who have the youngest average squad age in the Premier League this season of about 23/24 years old.

Now assembling a team of young talent is great when your luck is in, you’re playing well, winning and scoring lots of goals. But when your chips are down, nothing is going your way and you’re losing games, things can begin to spiral and that is exactly what we’re seeing now.

Winning breeds winning and losing breeds losing and Chelsea have got themselves in a rut now where the confidence is so low where results have spiralled and losing is becoming a habit – something very dangerous for a group of young players and you can tell heads are beginning to drop.

With this group of young players Chelsea are the opposite of what they used to be in the JT, Lamps and Drogba days. Now we’re seen as a soft touch, no one fears us and ultimately we’re a big name the lesser clubs think they can beat/get a result against.

This isn’t the players faults either – they’re young players. It’s the strategy and the huge risk the sporting directors have taken. They just had to partner youth with some experience, especially in the spine of the team. Even some experience in the dressing room/from the bench would’ve been massive. The average age of Manchester City’s treble winning squad last season was 27, and this should’ve been the blueprint. When the going has got tough in previous Chelsea teams I always felt we had players in the dressing room to drag us out of tough times, that’s not the case now.

This is particularly apparent with the attacking players - I don’t see anyone who can single-handedly pull us out of this mess, we don’t have a Drogba or a Lampard or a Hazard anymore – we don’t have guaranteed goals anywhere in this team, and that is the real worry.

The game is simple – if you don’t score you don’t win, and ultimately we have a real severe goalscoring problem right now and I struggle to see this changing. Its not as if we don’t create chances, we just cannot put them away.

You look at Jackson, Sterling and Mudryk – they look so nervous in front of goal and these nerves and lack of belief then run throughout the team. When we’re not winning or scoring you can feel the nerves and panic begins to build amongst the fans and players.

I actually really like Jackson as a player and believe he could be top but to throw the burden on a 22 year old lad with half a good season in La Liga at a club like Chelsea who are always, but now especially, under the microscope, is poor from the SDs.

Chelsea struggling to score goals is not a new thing, we have struggled since we lost Hazard and you could even argue since we lost Costa. With the amount of money spent they had to bring in another more experienced striker this summer – having Jackson and Broja (who has been out since Jan with a very serious knee injury) as the striking options at a club like Chelsea is not good enough. People will say “ahh but we’re waiting for Toney” but lets be honest – do you think Ivan Toney is watching Chelsea right now thinking that he’d love to join us in Jan…? I don’t.

For what it’s worth I don’t think that its all doom and gloom, I do honestly believe that we have improved on last season even if the results haven’t yet proved it. From Sanchez, to the back 4 through to the midfield I actually think we have looked good and solid – we (in my opinion) have a top 4 team but obviously it’s the attack we have the issues with.

We control games, look neat and tidy, don’t concede many chances, we just lack that killer instinct or that special something where we score a goal out of nowhere. I honestly can’t remember the last time we scored a goal from outside the box – its almost as if we always need to score the perfect goal.

The pressure would be massively alleviated from our attack if our midfield and defence contributed to goals – look how the goals are shared around at Arsenal, City, and how Bruno always chips in for Utd etc. I actually think our biggest goal threat right now is Axel Disasi from set pieces, yet we have this overriding urge to play every set piece short? Yet another example of the inexperience in the squad.

This, with the incredibly bad luck with injuries and the fact it feels like our opponents only need a fraction of the amount of chances to score than we do, is why we are where we are.

We also need to look back at moments in the season and wonder what if…what if Mudryk rounded Alisson and slotted home that winner in the last minute against Liverpool? What if Enzo had scored that penalty at West Ham? What if Jackson scored that sitter v Forest? What if Sterling’s freekick went in off the other side of the crossbar at Bournemouth? What if Gusto didn’t get (in my opinion) unfairly sent off and Sterling squared it to Jackson in that 1 v 1 vs Villa? We’d have (again in my opinion) 15/17 points, be unbeaten, full of confidence, and everyone would be raving about how good Poch and this team look as well as applauding the owners and SDs for what they have done. But unfortunately we are where we are – we have been unlucky but have also blown big moments.

I don’t blame Poch and I’m fully behind him despite a few bizarre decisions – we need stability now and if anyone’s going to turn this around I think he’s the man (plus which sane manager would take this job on now?).

Let’s hope Poch is right, lets hope this project does go “bang” and we start to see results. Things can change very quickly in football; a couple wins, build some confidence and gain some momentum and we could be a serious side.

Look at Arsenal. The way they started last season just breathed confidence throughout the whole club and the team and they haven’t really looked back since.

Confidence is massive in football. A couple wins back to back, some injured players returning, the fans get something to cheer about and the picture starts to look different.

Lets hope this starts vs Brighton. I don’t want to see masses of changes and I hope Poch uses this game to build relationships and cohesion. Although I would like to see Noni Madueke and Cole Palmer – they look like the only players who can make something happen out of nothing and we need those types of players now. I actually think this could be a good game for us to try turn things around – it could be a case of we get one or two and the goals start to come more frequently for us – lets hope so anyway!

Billy Young