Thiago Silva, Behdad Eghbali & being Chelsea

Many fans now feel the club "isn't Chelsea anymore". Work needs to be done.

I saw a video compilation of Thiago Silva’s Chelsea career the other day. Alongside some moving music, it stirred up a lot of memories. Good feelings. Nostalgia is a powerful drug, and not many of us are immune to its power when things aren’t great.

I know the Sporting Directors and owners read this site, so I’ll just say this straight. Fans don’t think things are going well. I think 90% of fans feel this way. Yes, we had a superb first half of the season, and played some good football. But the last two months have exposed the lack of quality depth in the squad, meaning our key starters now look exhausted. The poor squad building has been exposed.

Most fans I talk to now believe we won’t make the Champions League places, and given the money spent, it really would be a disaster if we didn’t make it this season. The owners need it for the big commercial deals and the CL revenue. The club needs it so we can keep investing in the team and keep ambitious players invested in the project. No amount of PR and spin will change those facts.

But that’s not the biggest problem.

Many fans don’t feel like this club is Chelsea they knew. I’m in a few group chats, and in all of them, people are saying “My club is gone”, “It's not Chelsea anymore”, specifically relating to Chelsea men. And some were saying this even when we were winning, this isn’t a reactionary take. Many said it in the summer.

This isn’t, to be clear, a dig at the ownership. But Chelsea, at its best, is a family. The fans had a connection of sorts to Ken Bates, and to Roman Abramovich. I think many fans felt that with Todd Boehly, hence they put faith in this ownership group. Todd Boehly was the one who won me over to the current ownership and vision.

But my sense is - and I talk to a lot of fans regularly - most fans don’t feel that with Behdad Eghbali and Clearlake, the majority owners, and who run Chelsea day to day. In comparison to Todd, we’ve barely heard from Behdad at all speaking specifically on Chelsea and his plans for the club, just once, and that was over 2 years ago in that infamous interview when he said we weren’t run well on the sporting and business side.

No one knows Behdad, we don’t know his ambitions, his dreams for Chelsea. We don’t know how much he cares about the club. He’s never outlined any kind of vision for the club or communicated with fans directly. Of course this itself, aligned with some of his actions as co-owner and how he’s run the club, sends a message. It sends a message that he doesn't care about the fans, and that he’s more interested in the profit side than the sporting side of things.

This may not be true.

I personally find it hard to believe Behdad doesn’t want Chelsea to win - purely because, winning, playing Champions League football regularly, aligned with a bigger stadium, gets you the biggest commercial deals, biggest revenues, and biggest profits. Way more than player trading.

Indeed Clearlake have spoken about wanting revenues of £1 billion per year, and you don’t get that by player trading or being 6th. You get that by being in the CL every season, getting to the final stages and competing for and winning big trophies, and the huge commercial deals all of this brings. Not to mention, frankly, winning is good for an owners’ ego and satisfies the investors from a PR perspective.

I’ve said consistently I think Behdad’s problem is maybe he thinks his way is going to deliver success, and is double downing on it. When in reality, he is trying something which has never or rarely worked in terms of delivering success.

It could easily be sped up by signing about 5-6 proven elite players, some winners, with good experience who can help mentor all the young players, and being flexible with a wage structure to accommodate them. Todd Boehly is in favour of this, allegedly. Liverpool, for example, have a strict wage structure like ours, but are flexible for some elite players, like Mohammed Salah. But Behdad seems intent on sticking rigidly to having a squad almost entirely of young talent thinking this will give him long term sustained success in 2-3 years. .

Now as I’ve said, the project of signing all the best young talent in the world and seeing them grow together into a team is a good one which I support. I’m absolutely clear on this.

But I and many others believe strongly, that you need those 4-5 experienced players, elite players, winners, to help the other 20 or so young players in the squad develop and to get a level of success established early. This is how all great teams are built.

The only exception to this was the Busby Babes, a team who won multiple league titles in the 1950s and had some good runs in the European Cup, before being tragically cut off just as they were coming into their prime due to the Munich tragedy. They had an average age of 21/22, similar to our squad. I’d hope Behdad isn’t trying to replicate this, because that was an absolute one off, it's never been done since. And even the Busby Babes probably made their debuts alongside a few experienced players who’d won things before.

The end result is many fans feel the club isn’t the same anymore, that it’s simply a money making machine, not a football club. Some fans feel players are now seen purely as tradable commodities, and winning takes second place to profit.

Again, I’m not one of these fans, I simply don’t believe this yet. But the fact this view is SO prevalent amongst the fans is very telling about how Behdad and Clearlake are coming across. I think being Private Equity investors doesn’t help with establishing trust, as they don’t really come across like sports-focused people, but profit focussed. Fans don’t want owners who put profit over sporting success, quite frankly. They never have, and never will.

Yes, Chelsea needs to be run as a sustainable business making revenue and profit, but as Todd and Behdad have said, the biggest profits and revenue come through sporting success. Get the sporting side right, the big profits and revenues follow.

So the less we succeed on the pitch, the less money the club will make, the lower the profits, the lower the return for the owners and their investors. It’s that simple.

And if this happens, the ownership and project will be deemed a failure, certainly by fans and likely the media too.

But this brings me back to the beginning. Chelsea fans want to feel a connection to the players, coaches, and staff at their club. They want that sense of family, of community, of us against the world, they need to know everyone working for the club cares about the club, and has some kind of emotional investment, an us against the world feeling, and ultimately, wants to win on the pitch as their first priority.

They don’t feel that with the mens team right now. With the women, its as strong as ever, and its not just because they are winning. But because everything about the culture and togetherness and emotion around it feels Chelsea. Their approach and actions convey that.

But with the men, its not quite there. Especially with the people at the top of the club on the mens side. And only the right decisions on and off the pitch, better communication direct from owners to fans, and an improvement in results consistently, will be able to change this. Otherwise, it's always going to be difficult for Behdad and Clearlake, no matter how good things get.

Fans need that connection and communication, and to be able to trust those in charge understand the club culture, the fanbase, will do the right thing for the club, and that they want to win.

Right now on the mens side, whatever the intention, that’s just not there.

The Score