Fan View: We are at a crossroads and I am scared

Contribution article by Danny Windsor

Contribution by Danny Windsor.

I have never felt so disconnected and disgusted with my football club in my whole life and from top to bottom, we are embarrassing. Where are our standards?!?

Chelsea Football Club is at a crossroads and I currently have zero confidence we will turn it around.

This article is for our owners - you have said you want to win and you have said you want success - you now have to prove it. Your £2.5 billion initial investment and  £1 billion investment on players are worth significantly less than when you bought it. It's not time to double down and try and prove your way was right, it's time to own up, admit your mistakes, and fix this mess.

The ownership needs to now show us they are serious, put a manager in place with a clear way of playing, recruit players to this style of play, buy some experience to compliment the side, sack the manager and both sporting directors who have been dreadful, and show some bravery and come and address the fans.

If we don’t do this this, the club will fall further and further down the table, we can't afford both financially and sporting-wise another crap season. Our good players like Cole Palmer, Malo Gusto, Levi Colwill and Reece James to name a few will want to leave!

This summer will be the last time you can bail out your terrible spending with Cobham players unless you want to sell our better players like Colwill and James. Chelsea fans don’t deserve to spend their hard-earned money and their precious time to watch this dross every week.

Less than two weeks ago, we got the briefing that Chelsea are 4th in the form table this calendar year and have not lost in 10; however, we have played well and deserved the results maybe 4-5 times. Since the end of January we have….

Chelsea 0-0 Aston Villa – Lucky to take it to a replay.

Liverpool 4-1 Chelsea – Embarrassing performance and it could have been 6/7-1.

Chelsea 2-4 Wolves – Embarrassing performance could of lost by more.

Aston Villa 1–3 Chelsea – The best team performance of the season.

Crystal Palace 1–3 Chelsea – Lucky to escape with a win with two injury time goals and Palace being wasteful.

Man City 1-1 Chelsea – Gutsy performance but went 1-0 up and then sat in our own box, if City where more clinical we would have lost.

Chelsea 0-1 Liverpool – Played pretty well for 90 minutes and should have won it but in extra time, but completely dropped off and let them play and it was also Liverpool’s reserves.

Chelsea 3-2 Leeds – Very lucky to win and Leeds dictated play and were the better side.

Brentford 2-2 Chelsea – Good first half, terrible second half and had to score late to salvage a draw.

Chelsea 3-2 Newcastle – Good performance, deserved to win but was nervy at the end.

Chelsea 4-2 Leicester – Very iffy performance, Leicester dictated play and we needed 2 very late and very individual goals to go through.

Chelsea 2-2 Burnley – Terrible performance, Burnley the better side and dictated play with 10 men after 40 mins.

Chelsea 4-3 Man Utd – Great first half, terrible second half nearly bottled a two goal lead and saved by Palmer in extra time.

Sheffield Utd 2-2 Chelsea – Terrible performance, they dictated play and we could hold on vs a side who will go down.

Chelsea 6-0 Everton – Good performance!

Man City 1-0 Chelsea – Best time to play City in history after 120 minutes vs Real Madrid. Created a lot first half but couldn’t score, second half average at best.

Arsenal 5-0 Chelsea – Gutless, spineless and embarrassing.

This is where the data-only model we are using is basically lying to say we are improving when Palmer or individual goals have bailed us out to get results. I don’t think we are better than we were last year in any way.

Pochettino has got it wrong time and time again, wrong team selection, no set up in build-up, no defensive solidity, no clear ideas, completely open, zero tactical flexibility, and zero ability to effect the game off the bench.

All we see is basketball style football with no progress and I would argue regression since the start of the season. Yes, he wasn’t dealt the best hand from the club with signings, and yes we have had a lot of injuries, but you aren’t even close to extracting the best out of this side and you haven’t instilled any way of play into this side all season.

How can Jurgen Klopp play U21’s handing debuts to kids, and they have a clear understanding of the way to play and what he wants, but we can have players who have been here all year that have no clue? How can Crystal Palace sack Roy Hodson at the end of February and have a clear identity now but Pochettino works with the players all season with no Europe and we don’t? Oliver Glasner has now matched Pochettino’s wins vs the top 8 and he has been here since the end of February…..

The way that Pochettino gives the team days off after a battering is a scary thought and it has happened on multiple occasions! They get treated like children, there no are no standards set, no consequences to underperforming, and then we wonder why they behave like children! How can Frank Lampard a year ago scream there is a lack of standards at the club and a year later nothing has changed?

The sporting directors have been abysmal; I have never seen a worse mismanagement of money in football or business. You have managed to buy a collection of overpriced players who either lack the quality required or are completely injury prone! How can we buy a centre back pairing of Axel Disasi and Benoit Badiashile for £75 million who were the same partnership that nearly got Monaco relegated?

How can we spend £40 million on two goalkeepers who have such brain fart moments and let in such easy goals!?

You could of combined the money you spent on them plus maybe 10 million and brought Mike Maignan or Diogo Costa who are world-class?

How can you buy Noni Madueke and Mykhailo Mudryk for £90 million combined when they are so raw and the ability is nowhere near their price tags, when you could have had Rafa Leao, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Ousmane Dembele or Diaby for the same or less?

How can you spend so much money on players who can't stay fit?! How can you appoint a manager who has a track record of not playing with any build-up or using his midfield properly to manage your £220 million midfield? How can you appoint a manager who has a track record of relying on top-quality forward to score goals and out perform xg due to the lack of a clear way of playing to manage a front line under the age of 22 and no track record of being clinical?

You have been completely terrible and you should be removed from your position or resign.

Chelsea are a bunch of individuals from top to bottom. There have been reports the owners aren’t synced on ideas, it is clear the sporting directors have recruited players individually with no thought of how to build a team, the manager isn’t completely on board with the model, the manager can't get the players to play as a team, and the players are playing as individuals hence the penalty incident vs Everton. This is hardly the collaborative approach we were promised!

Chelsea Football Club has become a Club that has no desire, has no objectives and doesn’t hold anyone accountable. The manager excuses bad performances every time and won't accept any responsibility, the club briefs false positives to excuse bad performances, and the players are buying into this mindset! This is why players like Noni Madueke are laughing after losing an FA Cup semi final when players who actually have standards like Palmer and Thiago Silva are distraught. Silva and Palmer are distraught due to personal standards and objectives and not a club mindset!

I will repeat it again, if we don’t change our model, if we don’t change our Sporting Directors, and if we don’t change our manager, this will be the standard of Chelsea Football Club. This is the most successful club since the turn of the century and we are now a shell of our previous selves and the fans do not deserve it! Only the most ridiculous fans thought we would be challenging for the league or a shoo-in for the top 4. We excepted some bumps in the road, but this just isn’t good enough!

Todd Boehly and Eghbali Eghbali, put your big pants on admit your mistakes, learn from them and pivot to a different way of working otherwise we will and always will be a midtable club. It’s if behaving like Brighton has made us become Brighton who would of thought?

The thing that really amazes me is how can the women's side of Chelsea be buying top quality proven talent, employing arguably the second-best manager in Women's football to replace Emma Hayes, but the men are on a completely different strategy?!? One are challenging on all fronts and excelling, and the other is middle table mediocre, no data required to see that one is working and the other isn’t…..

As always, keep the blue flags flying high! Come on you women!!

By Chelsea season ticket holder, Danny Windsor