Fans are angry & their voices should be heard

The voice of the fans must be listened to and respected

I spent a lot of time - probably too much time - on social media, on Chelsea Twitter in particular. Even more so during the transfer windows. This month has been different than anything I’ve seen before.

Chelsea are 6th in the Premier League, with only one in 7 PL games. I’ve never seen the fanbase so angry, so cynical, so critical of the ownership, so downbeat about the club's future.

You see, lots of people love Chelsea. Fans have an emotional investment and connection to the badge, to the shirt. We want our team to do well. We’ve lived through a period of unprecedented success, we know what it feels like, looks like and we want more of it.

But even some of the most patient, rational, understanding fans are now becoming more skeptical and more critical, and genuinely concerned about the clubs future and their ambition.

In fact that’s the polite way of saying it. Many fans I talk to are absolutely furious. And quite frankly, after the Manchester City game, I am too. The way we are being run, the squad building, the treatment of players, the lack of consistent improvement. Fans have been patient for two and a half years, and they want some answers.

I don’t share the concerns of some fans, but certainly I’m done with the lack of accountability for the decisions of the high ups, and the poor decisions being made. I’ve been patient, but that patience is wearing thin.

To be honest, whether the wider fans concerns are valid or not, is not the issue here - they may well not be - but the fact an increasing number of fans feel this way is an indictment on the ownership, mainly Behdad Eghbali and Clearlake Capital.

I may talk about this more in another article, but many fans I talk to want Todd Boehly to take full control from Clearlake, and I can’t lie, I’m fast becoming one of them. I and others believe Todd cares about the club, he understands the history and heritage, and has an emotional connection to it.

Not only that, he's a proven winner as a sports owner, he knows the sports world, and he’s willing to trust best in class experts to run the sporting side, and not interfere, as its been well reported Behdad does on a regular basis. It’s also been well reported that agrees with most fans about having proven, established, experienced players in the team as well as the best youngsters.

The fact is, a lot of fans I know no longer trust Behdad or Clearlake, or the Sporting Directors, and may never do again. They feel trust has been broken several times, including with the treatment of Trevoh Chalobah and Conor Gallagher, who they feel were both forced out of the club (Trevoh unsuccessfully, it seems for now), despite performing well for us whenever they played for Chelsea.

I talk to a lot of fans on a daily basis, and many I talk to now think all Behdad and the Sporting Directors care about us doing smart PSR deals for the sake of it, and making financial profit for the club. Building an elite team, setting us on a course to dominate domestically and in Europe, keeping our best players (Trev, Conor, Santos) comes across as secondary in their calculations.

For clarity, I don’t believe this last paragraph myself yet, my belief is they simply don’t know HOW to win or build a winning squad, but I certainly understand why others feel that way.

These concerns should not be dismissed, no matter how accurate or inaccurate they are. Because they come from genuine fans who love the club deeply. They want not just words, but actions, demonstrating that the priority is building a team and a squad to win. Acting, talking and behaving like a big club, with class in how they treat players, staff and rivals, in how they conduct negotiations, and projecting a sense of the size of the club and the right image of the club to fans and rivals alike. Making consistent and smart decisions.

Signing 2-3 players in one summer who we didn’t need, then moving them on only 6 months later, is not how serious clubs operate. Trying to do a PSR or effective swap with every transfer, and being opportunistic rather than strategic in targets, isn’t how to run a serious football club.

Fans know this, and these things all concern them, as does the perceived ignorance of some key positions on the pitch, like GK and ST, and trying to prioritise development over winning, a team of all youth and almost no experience. Youth is good, stockpiling the best young talent can be smart, but you need the proven, experienced spine. That’s not been achieved in 5 windows under the current SD’s.

Literally ANY football fan in the world knows that to build a successful team you need at least 5-6 elite proven players with some good experience (they can still be relatively young in age btw), and the rest of the squad can be as young and inexperienced as you want. It's how ALL successful football teams are built. Behdad and the sporting directors somehow think they can fly in the face of this and create a winning team anyway. It’s absolute nonsense and it has to stop, right now.

The goalkeeping situation is arguably the biggest example of this shambles. We have probably one of the worst number one goalkeepers we’ve ever had, who has likely cost us 5-7 points on his own this season (as of the Man City game), who seems to be only playing because he’s the favourite of our clearly over-promoted Head of International Goalkeeping, rather than on any kind of sporting merit. It's a shambles quite frankly.

The Sporting Directors have spent a LOT of money in the last two years, and we still don’t have a squad ready to compete for major titles. Indeed, many who joined us only 6 months ago are being linked with moves away already. That’s simply not good enough for a club the size of Chelsea. They and our GK guru Ben Roberts have had 2 years in the job and not done well enough to keep their jobs. That’s not personal, but a professional judgement, which many fans agree with.

Also, this shouldn’t need to be said but it does:

Chelsea Football Club is a huge, historical football club with great traditions, great history and track record for winning the big trophies. There are legendary players and managers going back well beyond the success of the Roman Abrmaovich era or the 1990s.

The expectation for Chelsea fans is to have a side that is competing for the biggest honours every season, with top players, playing winning football which gets us of our seats, with players and a manager who will fight for our club.

A club like Chelsea, demands elite people working for it. Sporting Directors, scouts, coaches, managers, players. It's a club that should be run with class. Treating current and former players, staff, fans employees, with dignity and respect, the fans, players and club as a community, almost a family. Thomas Tuchel often talked about the Chelsea family, and he nailed it.

Right now that’s not the case.

Some of the issues I’ve described in this article, I know make some fans concerned that we’re not ambitious, not heading in the right direction. When you take this fear and factor in Clearlake’s history and being a private equity company, people can easily slip into believing the perception we’re merely acquiring assets, some to sell on for profit not building a team.

Again, this is not my view at all. But it doesn’t take much to figure out how fans can come to this conclusion, and its something which the club need to address, with words and actions.

One of my friends, a fan for almost 30 years, thinks Behdad and Clearlake have, in his words “destroyed the club”. I don’t agree with this assessment, but I share it to demonstrate the genuine depth of feeling amongst fans, because I’m not sure if the higher ups realise how bad its got.

I don’t agree with all the fans criticisms and I know some of them aren’t actually true. But regardless, their views still matter and are valid. They shouldn’t be disrespected and dismissed.

If what these fans say isn’t true, then its the owners and directors JOBS to respond and communicate that both with their words, and actions.

The fans are the emotional stakeholders in the club. We were here long before Clearlake and will be here long after they’re gone. Its our club and we know it better than any Private Equity investors, and our voice matters.

Perception is everything, and the perception right now amongst many is that the “project” is a failed project, if it ever was a project, that there’s no coherent plan or strategy and that it's not focussed on winning trophies.

Again, that’s not my belief at all. I see what the project is and how it can succeed, I believe its an issue of poor execution. Respectfully, I believe a change in personnel at the top, the Sporting Directors and our GK man Ben Roberts, and Behdad taking a step back from interfering so much and trusting an elite, proven top class Sporting Director and CEO of Football would benefit Chelsea.

But regardless of what I believe, the view there is no project or its a failed project is becoming increasingly prevalent in many people.

I’m just the messenger. This is what a lot of fans genuinely feel.

I’ll repeat this till I’m blue in the face but fans are right to be concerned, and our concerns are valid. If we don’t know the whole story, its because we’re nearly 3 years in, and still, no one from the ownership has done an on camera interview to address fans concerns, apologise for the mistakes and outline the vision and plan for the club. It's not simply about money spent, fans care about HOW it is spent, and they’re not convinced it's being spent well or efficiently.

Nearly 3 years, is well enough time to build a competitive team, but we’re currently 6th and falling. 6th is where we finished last season, and several teams who have spent far less are doing as well, or better.

Communication and action are needed, because many fans have simply lost any trust in Behdad and the sporting directors to do right by the club.

If they want it back, they need to earn it, and that will take a long time right now, if it's possible at all. To be honest, for some there’s no way back, they want change in the leadership of the men's side of the club, and they don’t mean the manager.

And I hope they don’t think scapegoating the head coach Enzo Maresca - unfairly in my view - will satisfy fans. We’re smart. We know enough to know the issues go away beyond him or any head coach. We’re on the fourth head coach of these owners, and some of the same issues remain. Accountability starts at the very top.

This is Clearlake and the sporting directors mess, they need to front up, take responsibility and do something about it.

This is genuinely the worst I’ve seen the fanbase as regards the owners, if it gets worse you’ll start to see it at games too. Chelsea fans will not remain silent whilst this stuff continues. These issues need resolving as soon as possible, for the good of Chelsea Football Club, the club all of us fans love.

The Score