We've lost our winning culture. Here's how we get it back
Chelsea since the 90s have been about winning. We need that culture back.
In the last few days since the cup exit, I’ve been reflecting on something which has been bubbling under the surface for me for a few weeks. I watched the Season Review of the PL winning season 2016/17 under Antonio Conte and was really taken aback by the energy, mentality and culture at the club then.
It was a winning culture. The expectation, the demand, from the manager, players and everyone, was winning. Nothing else was acceptable. There was no process. No doubling down on expectations. The mentality from everyone was Chelsea are here to win, and nothing else is good enough. Our club philosophy wasn’t a style of football, it was winning.
And then I reflected on what I feel about us now, the energy and expectation I have, and I realised its just not the same. Even I have lowered my expectations and demands of what I want from Chelsea, the drip drip of the last 8 years of not being title contenders has subtly eroded this away, I - and I think others - have forgotten the standards, the energy, the culture of winning. I think we have as a club, and I certainly don’t feel it from Clearlake, Behdad Eghbali, or our Sporting Directors Lawrence Stewart or Paul Winstanley, either in words or often in actions.
Discounting the Club World Cup and Supercup, our last major trophy was the Champions League in 2021. Nearly FOUR years ago. Three years without a trophy hadn’t even happened since the Ranieri era, yet alone 4. We have a good chance to win a trophy this year, and I really do expect us to win the Conference League (if we don’t, its near a sackable offence, we’re so far better than every team in the competition). We should have won the league cup last year but fluffed our lines in the final.
If we don’t win the Conference League, we’ll be going into a fifth season since we won a major trophy. This, for Chelsea, would be unprecedented since 1997, and an absolute disgrace and embarrassment, especially having spent £1.4 billion since 2022.
In terms of domestic trophies its even worse. Now we’re out of the domestic cups (no chance of the league obviously), its now 8 full seasons since we won a domestic trophy and will be 9 years by the time the next domestic trophies are handed out, our next chance to win one. We’ve lost 6 domestic finals in that time, in a row. 5 under Roman’s ownership and 1 under the current owners.
We’ve not challenged for the league since 2016/17, when we won it under Antonio Conte, which is 9 seasons ago. That’s nearly a decade without a title challenge. Again, given we’ve spent well over £2 billion under two different owners in that time, that is both embarrassing and unacceptable, no other way to describe it. We should be doing better given the money spent.
Indeed, since we did the double in 2010 we’ve only challenged for the title 4 times in 15 years. In 2010/11, 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2016/17. In the last five years of Roman Abramovich’s ownership we spent the same as Manchester City but were at least 30 points behind them or the PL winners every year. That’s got even worse under the current ownership. I mean even this season we’re currently 13 points off Liverpool in top, probably that’ll go up to nearly 20 by the season ends, so although we might be back to the level we were before the takeover, a solid top 4 side, we’re no more thanb that.
Enzo Maresca’s comments saying the positive of being out of the FA Cup to focus on the PL and Conference League were about as tone deaf for a Chelsea manager as you can get. I actually love Maresca, but those comments were NOT what a Chelsea manager says when going out of the cup, or any competition. You say you’re disappointed, Chelsea’s goal is to win trophies and we’ve missed an opportunity and you’re angry we’ve gone out. That’s basics for a Chelsea manager..
These two comments by Tweeds and Alex Goldberg this week on social media, really articulated the issue for me:
“We have a complete disconnect from any winning culture the club had. BlueCo could have rebuilt sensibly, but instead, they tore everything up with a ‘we know best’ mentality — taking us backwards at worst and leaving us stagnant at best, despite spending £1.5bn.”
- @UnknownTweedy on X
“What really concerns me about Chelsea right now is how OK the club are becoming with losses & getting knocked out of tournaments. I’m all for “trusting the process” and building towards something but we are rapidly losing all signs of having a winning culture.”
- Alex Goldberg on X
Just a reminder, the culture at the club since 1996/97, certainly up to 2018, was winning. That’s it. Football philosophy, style, passing and possession stats, etc didn’t matter one bit. Yes, we wanted high paced attacking football, on the tradition, power and pace with a bit of flair, but above all we wanted to win. WInning trophies was the number one goal every season and we accepted a more pragmatic style at times, in order to win. That’s all that mattered.
Then came the shift, in 2018. Roman Abramovich had long been obsessed with Barcelona’s football and brought in Maurizio Sarri to play the more possession based, technical style at Chelsea. It divided the fanbase like never before, and in truth, that divide is still there. Many of us never felt this style suited Chelsea.
Carlo Ancelotti was such a hit here because he won playing electric attacking football, not slow paced passing football. He got the balance right in terms of style of football, a winning mentality, and actually winning big trophies.
No matter how many fans try to change this, the reality is the majority of Chelsea fans just don’t like slow build up play with a million passes, and will never accept it.
My view Chelsea fans overall would prefer the Jurgen Klopp style, geggenpressing, which is high paced, intense, aggressive, attacking style on transition, with magic and flair which gets bums off seats. I always said Klopp would have been a perfect fit with Chelsea and our fans, and I still believe this.
Daniel Childs, a writer and content creator whose views I respect, and my friend Louis Beneventi from the Chelsea Echo, said this on social media this week, and it resonated:
“Chelsea always look worse when they try and play the football Maresca was advertised to bring and way more effective when they do the opposite.”
- Daniel Childs on X
“Chelsea have always looked better when they were the antithesis of what “the way to play” is.
This season, we looked more effective on the transition as a swashbuckling and aggressive side. But that’s not sexy.”
- Louis Beneventi on X
Daniel and Louis are spot on here. Which brings me again to Real Madrid.
Chelsea and Real Madrid have more in common than Chelsea and Barcelona. Real Madrid’s goal is to win, no matter how it comes. They don’t have a set football philosophy or style they have to play. They want to play attacking, enjoyable football, but the most important thing at Real Madrid is to win. To win the big trophies, every year. That’s their culture.
At our best in the last 28 years that’s what Chelsea have been. A club focussed on winning, not obsessed with football philosophy, style of play or possession based Pep-ball. That’s never been part of Chelsea culture, and every time we try to adopt it, it rarely works, and is never accepted even if we win trophies with it. Because its not really who we are.
Since 2018, the divide between fans (mainly online fans) who are near obsessed with Pep’s football and positional play, and those (mainly matchday fans or long time, more rational fans) who just want electric, attacking football, power, pace, intensity and ultimately to just win however we play, has always been there.
Thomas Tuchel was - and probably still would be if we were run properly - a perfect fit for the modern Chelsea, because he was a winner, a tactical genius, but also because at Chelsea he blended the possession-based technical football with a more pragmatic style, which moved the ball forward at pace, with wing backs driving forward and getting the ball forward quickly, and it worked.
Tuchel at Chelsea was a modern style but also a pragmatic winning style, with a bit of flair and often played at high intensity, power and pace at times. In many ways this is the blueprint Chelsea should be following in terms of the type of football. Tuchel was willing to be pragmatic tactically and in order to maximise the players he had and get results and win trophies, and that’s what Chelsea fans want in a manager, and in the culture of the club.
But to me that’s not there anymore. There’s no relentless, ruthless desire to win trophies every season, to dominate the Premier League and Champions League every year. We don’t hear that from the owners, and we don’t see it in their actions. A total refusal to even buy 3-4 elite players with experience and leadership who can perform right now, around the 20-21 young players, isn’t how to build a winning culture at the club and get your club winning. Its literally never been done in the history of football
As Tweeds said, Behdad Eghbali and the Sporting Directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, think they know better than everyone else in football about how to build a winning squad and to achieve success. And they’re wrong.
Again, I believe in the project in the sense of getting all the top young talent in the world and building long term. But, I believe those players need winners, leaders and proven quality around them to have success and build a winning culture. To me this is obvious, and to most fans as well. To everyone in fact, apart from those who head up the Chelsea men.
How do you rebuild a winning culture? Here’s some simple steps:
Hire a world class CEO of football who has built squads which win and consistently compete for the major trophies, and has a winning mentality.
Hire an club legend, or even more than one - like Roberto Di Matteo and/or Petr Cech - who have won major trophies at Chelsea, in RDMs case, as a player and a manager, and get them to indoctrinate the players, staff, everyone at the club, and potential signings, with the Chelsea, winning, DNA and understand club culture. They will be involved in recruitment, in selling Chelsea to players, and liaising with players to implement a winning culture and Chelsea DNA through the club.
Hire a talented head coach with a winning mentality, who plays the kind of football Chelsea fans can connect with, who can translate that winning mentality to the players.
Give the head coach at least 2-3 years to achieve a PL title challenge, 4 years to win a PL title, 5 to win the CL, whilst also setting the absolute minimum standard of top 4 and getting to the latter stages of at least one cup competition every season, with the expectations rising season on season.
The CEO of Football, club legend and head coach implement a winning culture from top to bottom, with ambitions and expectations set clearly for players (individually and collectively), fans and staff - so everyone knows what we want to achieve and the standards expected. Anyone who thinks its too much is shown the door immediately.
Build a competitive squad with strength in depth, keep your best players, and sign 3-5 elite, proven players, winners, leaders through the spine of the team to help your 20-21 young players to develop and learn the winning culture.
Sell off the crap we don’t need, taking small losses if necessary, and stop charging stupid fees for players we want to sell and underpaying for signings.
Value Cobham, not as a cash cow but a source of players. Establish a culture and pathway where the best Cobham players, and the ones who proven they’re good enough, you keep, to ensure Chelsea DNA is established and keep the heart of the club.
Sort out the commercial arm of the club and get some big commercial deals sorted to ensure the club has good commercial revenue.
Rebuild trust with fans and players, act with class and dignity, treat players properly, as human beings, and respect fans, stop treating us like customers.
Ensure there is accountability at all levels of the club for achieving the targets and real consequences for failure.
That’s a good start anyway.
So much is rotten with the people who run the men's side. Poor recruitment, poor decisions, no accountability, money wasted, no sense of direction or purpose, no winning mentality, and patronising fans with ridiculous PR briefs to cover failure, and a refusal to sign any proven players.
This has to end and action has to be taken. Behdad Eghabali can actually do this if he wants, but likely won’t, so it will take a change of ownership and Todd Boehly taking the reins for anything like this to happen.
But it's possible, there’s no excuse not to do this and get Chelsea back where we belong, and reclaim our identity as winners, whose philosophy is to win trophies first, great football second. We need to stop settling and get find ourselves again.
This is how we get our Chelsea back. Will it happen? All we can do is hope.
The Score
I like reading your articles but there is massive Tuchel revisionism going on here.
"Thomas Tuchel was - and probably still would be if we were run properly - a perfect fit for the modern Chelsea, because he was a winner, a tactical genius, but also because at Chelsea he blended the possession-based technical football with a more pragmatic style, which moved the ball forward at pace, with wing backs driving forward and getting the ball forward quickly, and it worked."
I watched us implode under him. I saw his last 6 months. It was some of the worst football I have ever seen. Our start to the season when he was sacked was horrific. We were in relegation form and he showed no clue of how to fix it. We were battered at Leeds. Lost against Southampton. On xG we were atrocious. The football was as it is now - slow, boring, passing the ball sideways at the back and creating nothing.
Conference League Winners 😂😂😂 not currently likely with the total lack of form and depth suddenly not looking 👀 so good.
As always your articles are a great read. You must be bored hitting your head against that wall