The biggest reason we're all so angry

Bottom line, we've not been winning enough

The Chelsea fanbase has never felt so negative, divided an angry as it is right now. I feel it too.

There’s so many things we’re all frustrated and angry about, and we’re all looking for scapegoats. Owners, directors, coaches, players, we all want someone to blame. I’ve done plenty of this myself.

Of course the root of all of this, is we’re not getting the results we want. Chelsea haven’t finished even in the top 4 for two seasons in a row, and for most of us, that’s the bare minimum we’ve come to expect. Ideally, of course, we want more. We want Chelsea dominating the Premier League and Champions League, in a sustained way, in a way City are, or close to it. We want trophies. We want world class players.

I think the biggest reason we’re so angry and divided is less to do with all these smaller things and people, but results. A loss of pride. A loss of status. Not seeing our team compete or be remotely consistent. Lots of change very quickly, and not yet seeing tangible success. These reasons are perfectly valid. I know I’m tired of not being a competitive team, and I hate seeing Arsenal especially do so well whilst we’re not competing. It hurts.

Two years ago, in summer 2022, Arsenal fans were protesting regularly outside the Emirates. Angry, frustrated, waving banners, out in force demanding the owner, Stan Kroenke (American, like our owners, coincidentally), sold up. They were sick and tired of mediocrity and “the process” under Kroenke, with a rookie unproven manager in Mikel Arteta. The owner of Spotify even made a cheeky bid for the club.

Two years later, Arsenal have had back to back 2nd place finishes in the Premier League, are back in the Champions League, and some have them favourites for this year's PL title. They have a great team playing superbly. Funnily enough, the complaints about the owners have vanished completely. Protests are a thing of the past. The fans are happy, united, confident and feeling good about their club again.

It took them a while to get there. Manager Mikel Arteta took over in 2019, and they've been signing and developing young talent from outside and inside. Spent a LOT of money. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, it all took off.

My point is, ultimately, what we as fans want most of all, is wins. We want to see our team challenging for the top honours, for the league, the Champions League, playing enjoyable, winning football consistently. To have a team and manager we believe in and feel confident in.

I’ll be honest, the last time I felt that was in 2021 and 2022, when Thomas Tuchel was manager. But even then, the last time Chelsea challenged for the title - yet alone won it - was 2016-2017. That’s 8 years ago now. Funnily enough, only 2 of those seasons were under the new ownership. Our decline has tragically coincided with City’s rise under Pep Guardiola, who have won 6 PL titles in the 7 seasons since 2017.

I think one thing fans often forget, is at the time we became dominant back in 2004, we were the richest club in the world, and by far the richest in the Premier League. There was no FFP or PSR. We could buy who we like and make huge losses without consequences, and had little competition in the market. We could buy top players easily and pay higher wages than anyone. Money in the PL wasn’t what it was now, lower teams had nothing like the money of top teams. You could buy instant success pretty easily with the right amount of money, and we did.

Success came so easy, so quickly, we never had to struggle to achieve it, or earn it, or build it, like other clubs had done. We never had to go through a building of success over several years to achieve it. A whole generation of fans grew up this way.

Rival fans have always resented us for that.

I feel now, it coming so easy tricked us into believing it would always be that easy. Conned us inot thinking spending money or just changing a manager would just deliver instant success, and this would continue. But in reality, its not. Man City took 3 years to win a trophy and qualify for the Champions League under the current owners. Liverpool took 3 and a half seasons and a few lost finals under Klopp to win a trophy, and only won two trophies in the first 9 years of FSG’s ownership. Arsenal took years to build the team they now have competing for the top honours. All went through some tough periods on the way to where they are now.

Bottom line, in the modern game, it takes years to build a team capable of competing for the PL title and CL every season. You can’t just spend money and expect a team to suddenly be as good as City. Especially if the team is full of young talent which is still developing. We can’t pay limitless wages, other clubs can pay big fees. There’s tons of competition for every player. Whoever the manager is, success will take time to achieve.

I believe we have a head coach, in Enzo Maresca, with a great philosophy who will deliver a team playing enjoyable, entertaining football. But it will take time and there’ll be growing pains along the way, like the City result, and in truth, we have to accept it. Success isn’t coming quickly or easily.

We’ve never had to learn patience as a fanbase. That’s not our fault, we didn’t choose what happened with our club and Roman (though most of us would choose it if we could). We had no idea how it would indoctrinate all of us (me included, I get angry too) into being less patient.

One other thing we’ve often done as fans is pin our hopes on the big signing, the elite player or manager, to magically turn things around. But that’s a mirage too.

Signing Victor Osimhen isn’t suddenly going to make us equal with City. It will improve us considerably, and in time we could get there with him. But it won’t be instant. Certainly not this season.

Other fanbases of big clubs have had to go through this in between period. City even got relegated to league 2 at one point. Liverpool and Arsenal were both in the wilderness for years. Football is cyclical. We have a lot of talent which will improve, and ambitious owners. I believe our time will come again soon.

In 2015 when Brendan Rogers was sacked by Liverpool, commentators said the owners had taken the clubs soul and had no idea what Liverpool meant. I don’t think they’d say that now. What changed? Results.

A lot of the fan anger will die down if we can start winning consistently, playing good football and competing higher up the table, and for trophies.

I’ve seen us win 28 trophies since 1997, I can cope with a few years of struggle, before being a serious side again. I think we have some incredible talents in our squad. They’re young and inconsistent, but the talent is there. Cole Palmer, Romeo Lavia, Wesley Fofana, Levi Colwill, Malo Gusto, Reece James, Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Christopher Nkunku, Pedro Neto, Noni Madueke, Nicolas Jackson, are just some of the talents we have. With the likes of Esteavo Willian and Kendry Paez to come, and other talents like Andrey Santos, Aaron Anselmino and Lesley Ugochukwu out on loan.

No Chelsea fan is ever going to settle for mediocrity or being a top 6 side. Our fans aren’t wired that way. We want to be the best, we always do. And if we keep on not being that, fans will eventually make their voices heard loudly, as is our right.

I think instead of being divided, we should all remind ourselves what we ALL want: a Chelsea team we can be proud of, in that blue shirt, competing for the biggest trophies every season, showing pride in that shirt. Focus our energy on backing these young players who I know have character and fight, which they showed last year coming from behind so often. We don’t all have to support the owners, or sporting directors, but young players, in my view, always deserve our support.

We may differ on how success is achieved, on players, managers and other things, but ultimately, that’s what we all want.

I hope we can get there sooner, rather than later.

The Score