So we need a new manager.. but what's Chelsea's football philosophy?

The club need to give us clarity and hire the right man

It's getting to the point where most Chelsea fans - though not all, I should qualify - are in broad agreement that Mauricio Pochettino needs to leave Chelsea at the end of the season.

This will, if it happens, leave Chelsea looking for a new manager again, and although we’ve said this a lot in the last two years, this one really does have to work.

Reflecting on this, brought me initially to the question of what kind of profile of manager Chelsea want.

But before we can examine that, it struck that we really need to decide what Chelsea's footballing philosophy is going to be for the foreseeable future. Football and coaching has undoubtedly moved on from some of the football Chelsea used to play, and certainly from the Pochettino style of simply releasing players to do whatever they wish without too much tactical work. To compete in modern football, its’ a necessity to have a coach who is strong tactically and set up, organise and prepare teams tactically. Rightly or wrongly, modern players require more tactical input and structure than previous generations.

But traditionally, Chelsea have played a more pragmatic style of play, rather than a pure philosophical one. Whether we’ve played defensive or attacking football, it’s always been quite pragmatic, adapted to the personnel available and sometimes to the opposition, rather than sticking dogmatically to a formula no matter what.

All but one time Chelsea tried a philosophy or project manager, its not worked out or lasted long. The likes of Phil Scolari, Andre Villas Boas, Maurizio Sarri and Graham Potter were all gone inside 12 months. Pochettino, a project manager, looks like following this tradition. The only philosophy/project manager who had a lasting positive impact, was Glenn Hoddle. And one could argue he was given more time as he was under less pressure to deliver instant success, and in the first two seasons at least, didn’t have the same quality of player available.

Chelsea’s modern fans are used to managers delivering quickly, not waiting for a process. That’s unlikely to change even with marginally lower expectations currently. To show any patience, Chelsea fans want to see a discernible style, philosophy and way of playing developing, players, performances and consistency improving, they want to see good tactical set ups, patterns of play and organisation developing on the pitch.

And quite frankly, there’s not been much this year. No patterns of play, no structure, no tactical or defensive organisation. Individual players - mainly attackers - have improved but as a team there’s no style of play emerging, or any sign of working on areas of weakness.

Which brings me back to the philosophy. Because this has been one big division between Chelsea fans recently. Some wanting a more philosophical, Barcelona/Man City style of football, controlled possession and vertical and horizontal passing, saying this is modern football and we have to embrace it. Others feel we need to stay closer to our roots, power, pace, intensity, flair, sometimes counter attacking play.

However, I’d argue the Pep/Sarri/De Zerbi style of football, slow build up, lots of possession, walk it in etc, has never really been successful at Chelsea for any length of time. In my experience, many Chelsea fans simply get bored out of their minds by this, and don't have the patience it requires for it to be implemented.

Historically, Chelsea fans demand more high intensity, high press, high energy, quick, powerful, attacking football with magic and flair, with the ability to adapt and evolve. In modern terms, this is more akin to Jurgen Klopp, Julian Nagelsmann, Sebastien Hoeness, Ruben Amorim and even Thomas Tuchel. This style incorporates the technical, possession based aspects of Pep Guardiola's philosophy, as most modern coaching styles do, but played at a much higher intensity.

Chelsea, in my view, need to choose one of these styles to pursue for the next 10 years at least, and only hire coaches and sign players who fit with that philosophy.

The profile of manager I believe we should be targeting, is not surprisingly for many, the latter type. The Klopp/Nagelsmann, high intensity, physical, powerful but technical play with pace and flair. Indeed this is the philosophy of football I think we should be adopting as a football club overall.

However, we all know one of our sporting directors is more in tune with the former style. Paul Winstanley was at Brighton for a while and even helped recruit Roberto De Zerbi, with some stories suggesting he wants to bring him to Chelsea. Our more recent appointment, Sam Jewell, is on record as saying De Zerbi is a world class coach. All three have worked together well. Some people even make an argument that our entire structure and squad is being built with him in mind, which is difficult to argue with, given he worked with three of our players before and certainly got the best out of Moises Caicedo and improved Levi Colwill. Chelsea have done plenty of diligence on De Zerbi, though interest keeps being denied. But we all remember how interest in Pochettino was played down last year, so we'll wait and see on that.

Overall, the football people need to make some final decisions on what kind of club and team we're going to be. How we're going to play football. They need to clearly communicate this to the fans, and hire a coach to deliver on this, and give him the tools to do it.

Even if its not the one I would choose, both myself, and I think a lot of other fans would have a lot more respect for the team building and team development if this was clarified for us. If we knew where it was going, what the philosophy really was, and could see tangible evidence of this developing on the pitch, having patience to see the team develop might be a little easier.

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