The four windows are up. Where are we with the squad and the "Project"?

Some thoughts on the squad and the infamous project

Chelsea have now completed four transfer windows under the current Sporting Directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. We were widely told through the media to give them four windows to rebuild the squad completely, many of us have been patient to judge our squad at the end of this window. So it feels a good time to assess this, but even more so, the state of the Chelsea “project”. Because given the language we were given in 2022, some may be confused as to what really happened and where we are.

First, lets look at the squad. From my own point of view, in the main, this has been done well. We’ve signed a lot of talented young players, not just for the first team squad now, but for the future. We were the fourth best team in the PL for the last 30 games of the PL last season, and fourth best currently in the calendar year. If this squad can grow together, there’s a lot of talent there to give us success long term.

However there are, for me, a few positions I think we still need quality players. First and foremost, the striking position. I love Nicholas Jackson, he’s one of the smartest signings we’ve made and huge credit to the sporting directors for getting him. But he can’t carry the striking weight alone, we need someone more proven, someone at least who is capable of competing with him for that spot in the Premier League. And this still hasn’t been addressed.

Not having addressed the striker position in four successive windows, is, to me, sheer negligence. This should have been a priority, but its still not been addressed, and the sporting directors, in my view, deserve a LOT of criticism for this. Make no mistake, its a big failure on their part and not good enough.

I’d argue we could also improve the squad at CB and maybe even a GK too. With some more proven players who can provide that spine all great teams need.

That’s 2-3 players we’re lacking, so if they were aiming for a complete rebuild in 4 windows, they’ve failed. Overall, however, the squad rebuild looks good.

I think we’ve signed a lot of midfielders with huge potential, our attack, outside the number 9 position, seems set for a long time. The full back positions seems covered too. So overall I think we now have a core who can be with us for a long time, with other players on loan or set to join who can add to this.

I would personally have kept the likes of Conor Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah, but I also accept the reality that for whatever reason, they are deemed expendable for our project. Overall I think our current squad can achieve top 4 this season (more on that in another article).

But what about the infamous long-term “project”, where are we with that?

Many argue towards the end of last season there were big signs of progress under previous head coach Mauricio Pochettino, only for the owners and directors to appear, on the surface, to rip this up and start over. The owners had said publicly they wanted to end the hire and fire culture, yet have got through 3 permanent managers in two full seasons in charge. So what’s going on? How is this a plan?

Some good questions. Here’s my thoughts on this.

The original “plan” in 2022 never really got off the ground properly, and didn’t have any sporting directors in at the start. So, since the sporting directors came in in January 2023, they took control of the project, and kind of started over.

They’ve been building a new squad and a footballing infrastructure at the club to support and sustain this squad, and their chosen manager for it. They’ve tried to do this in line with a football philosophy and identity similar to Manchester City.

It was well reported they had four transfer windows, and now we’ve had those four windows. The “plan” we heard in summer 2022 was refined, altered or essentially started over in January 2023, all building towards this season.

It’s important to remember the context the owners came into in Summer 2022, when the takeover happened. Todd Boehly had to be interim sporting director, as people like Marina Granovskaia had to leave, we know now, due to the allegations we’ve self-reported from the previous regime. The new owners had no time to plan a window, or build a football structure, they took over on the day the window opened, straight into a transfer window, with the Lukaku situation to deal with and two CBs leaving on free transfers in Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen, because of the failure of the previous regime to renew their deals. They had to clean up that mess, and had no time to appoint a sporting director or build a structure to oversee transfers that summer.

It was, in hindsight impossible to begin a real plan in summer 2022. There were so many fires to put out, so many urgent needs, and no time to prepare. In hindsight, maybe it would have been smarter to spend less money, on less players - maybe address the CB situation and the LB and ST positions only - then assess the squad with sporting directors, before making other changes in January. But in reality given the immediacy of football, impatience of fans needs of our squad then, this couldn’t happen. But its telling that only two of the summer 2022 intake, Marc Cucurella and Wesley Fofana, are still at Chelsea now.

Then there’s the manager situation. Its likely now that the ownership already knew Thomas Tuchel was leaving the club at least a week or two before it happened. There may be reasons it had to happen when it did, but ideally, you’d have got at least one sporting director in and kept Tuchel to the natural break at the winter world cup, then consulted with that sporting director and appointed a new manager with their input, to begin in December 2022 after the World Cup.

People often forget, Graham Potter wasn’t appointed by our current sporting directors, but by Todd Boehly and the owners, an in truth, we have no idea if Winstanley and Stewart would have appointed him. Bottom line, he wasn’t their appointment, and the summer signings of 2022 weren’t theirs either. They arrived with a squad and coach they hadn’t hired.

We probably should have expected a down season. The level of change and pace of this change at the club was unprecedented. I know for sure there was not much elite level football structure, not much data usage or storage at the club, and likely due to the allegations they discovered, they felt they needed to get plausible deniability and make a clean break in terms of the staffing and day to day running of the club.

I don’t think this “scorched earth” policy was done out of malice, more because they knew due to what they’d found out, they needed to clear house to ensure all elements of these allegations were removed from the club. Which you can understand, given the nature of the offences they discovered.

With that amout of instability and change, especially after sanctions and their impact on the club, and so many players who knew they were leaving, it was natural this would translate onto the pitch in some way.

So the sporting directors began work in Jan 2023, with a manager they didn’t appoint, players they didn’t sign, and knowing with the offences we had, I believe it was made clear we needed to rebuild the squad quicker than a club would normally do so. We also needed to cut the wage bill dramatically, build a football infrastructure at the club from almost nothing, and rid the club of the toxic player power culture which had been an issue for so long.

That would explain the number of signings we’ve made in 3 of the 4 windows since, the number and identity of players who’ve left, and the number of staff and scouting appointments in the last 20 months.

It also quickly became clear Graham Potter wasn’t up to the job as head coach and the sporting directors essentially needed to start over in the head coach department. But they couldn’t appoint a new project manager immediately.

They clearly knew after a very unstable season, trying to bring harmony to the dressing room, and a young squad, they needed a stabilizing influence. Someone with experience of management and the Premier League, proven to build good team spirit, healthy atmosphere and culture, and an expert in developing young talent. A head coach who could get the absolute most out of his players in the short term and provide calm and stability whilst the sporting directors built out the squad for a coach who could have a long term approach and played the philosophy of football the owners and directors wanted.

Mauricio Pochettino was the obvious choice. He was a stabilizing influence who could lay solid foundations for the long term. They gave him a two year deal specifically as they knew when he came in he wasn’t the long term guy. They had no long term guy lined up, but they knew Pochettino would not be that guy. And as soon as they felt the squad was near enough ready, either after one or two years, they’d move him on for the long term head coach for the project who would embody their football philosophy and build it through the team and club long term.

One person whose influence we shouldn’t underestimate here is Joe Shields. He was at Manchester City for a long time, mainly under the tenure of Pep. He saw first hand how to build a successful football club in terms of philosophy, structure, culture and team building. He saw a high performance sporting environment at first hand and worked in it for several years. Its clear from the increasing influence he’s been given at the club, more influence over recruitment for first team and the academy, influence over implementing a holistic football philosophy of the club all the way through.

Then there’s the hirings of Stewart Thompson as a scout, and Glen Van Der Krann as a senior academy coach - both directly from Manchester City, people Joe Shields would have known from his time there. Next up, the signings of Cole Palmer, Romeo Lavia, Tosin Adarabioyo and most recently Jadon Sancho, all of whom Shields worked with at the Manchester City academy, three of whom he signed as academy players there.

Finally, of course there’s the appointment of Enzo Maresca as head coach. Enzo was the U21 coach who won the PL2 with many of the players Joe Shields worked with and recruited, whilst he was at City. They had a previous relationship and Shields knew his coaching ability and mentality, having seen it first hand, and believed his philosophy was exactly what this squad was built for and what we wanted as a club.

Maresca too had worked in that high performance, elite environment at Manchester City for a few years, and was rated so highly by Pep Guardiola he invited him to be one of his key assistants. Pep doesn’t suffer fools, to coach with him you need to be an elite level coach, and you need to be able to gain and keep the respect of elite players with an elite mentality. Enzo clearly had all these qualities, and Shields knew this.

Shields, a lifetime Chelsea fan, essentially experienced and worked in the model at Manchester City and wanted to replicate that at Chelsea. He knew that was the way to achieve success, and build a winning culture at Chelsea. So, he brought in a lot of former City staff and players to implement it. Indeed, Chelsea now have twice as many former Man City employees on staff, including players, than Brighton ones. So much for trying to be like Brighton, eh?

It’s very clear now, we’re trying more to model ourselves, in philosophy, culture and sporting structure, largely on Manchester City. We’ve brought in the best elements of Brighton, largely use of data, scouting and basic infrastructure, hence the appointments of Paul Winstanley and Sam Jewell. But, we’ve aligned them with the football philosophy, team building, and holistic football approach of Manchester City, with the same long term ambitions - to win trophies, and dominate the Premier League and Champions League .

Enzo Maresca IS the project manager. He now has a squad that’s near enough complete, which was the fourth best team in the PL for a lot of last season, and fourth best in the PL in 2024. This squad is full of young talent ready to develop and reach their prime together here, hopefully playing with a clear footballing identity and philosophy, based on the one which has won 6 of the last 7 PL titles. The last 18 months has been about building a squad and building the infrastructure of the club off the pitch in order to deliver sustained success.

It might take a little time to fully implement Enzo’s philosophy, and there might be mild setbacks along the way. But the Wolves game, second half, showed what it can do when it works. In time, Enzo will be aiming for that level of performance consistently, in most games, for 90 mins, And judging by that second half v Wolves, it will be great to watch, and will deliver wins and success.

There’s still some tweaks needed to the squad, but we’re closer than ever to climbing back up the table to where Chelsea should be. Hopefully the glaring issues can be addressed in January, before our transfer ban.

There is a plan, there always has been. Maybe it changed a little along the way, maybe the execution has seemed messy and there’s definitely been mistakes in appointments and recruitment at times, but now its firmly underway and the direction is clearer than ever. The sporting and coaching structure and the core of the squad is now in place. All that’s needed are time, patience and a couple more tweaks.

The Score