What do Chelsea have to do to become title challengers again?

Three key areas that Chelsea MUST get right in order to challenge for silverware again.

Going from almost 20 years of constant success under Roman Abramovich’s ownership of the club to a 12th-place finish and a slow start to Todd Boehly and Clearlake’s ownership of the club, has not been easy to witness. The club are fairly transparent in saying we’re building for the future and we might need to have a little bit of patience, but that hasn’t gone down well with a lot of our supporters.

Boehly and Co. are correct, though. The trophies (especially in the latter years) constantly papered over the cracks under Roman’s stewardship. 99% of the fanbase would take success on the pitch quickly but the culture of hiring then firing just doesn’t work in football anymore. 

Clubs need to build sustainable models and unfortunately, Boehly and Clearlake had to build that from scratch at Chelsea. We had an ageing squad that were all bought by different managers with different playstyles so it needed to be ripped up. 

In my opinion, the new owners have made a good (not perfect) start to the rebuild, but there is more to do and that poses the question ‘What do Chelsea have to do to become title challengers again?’

There are three key areas that we must get right this year. If we get them right, then we’ll have a solid chance in the next few years of becoming title challengers. 

The first area is personnel. Whilst I do think we’ve got an extremely talented squad, there are a few noticeable gaps that I’m baffled we haven’t addressed. 

The obvious position we desperately need is a striker. I’m sure Chelsea are going to go all out for either Ivan Toney or Victor Osimhen in January and that simply has to be the case. Chelsea fans won’t settle for another 20-year-old forward who doesn’t have over 30 career appearances. We need a killer in front of goal and I’m shocked we don’t have one already. 

Of course, they signed Christopher Nkunku, but he wasn’t deployed by Pochettino as a striker in pre-season and I’m wary that we’re putting too much pressure on him to come back firing after a nasty knee injury. 

A striker is non-negotiable, but that’s not the only position I feel needs an upgrade. Our left-back options are decent, but that’s it. Valentin Barco is the most talented left-back on the market and although he is young, his stats are outrageous and I do think he’s a player we will look to buy. 

I’d love to see us go out there and buy one of the best in the world at left-back, however. Alphonso Davies is rumoured to be leaving Bayern at the end of this season and he’s a well-known Chelsea fan. He’d be the dream option but I don’t think he’d come to us without Champions League football. The same goes for someone like Theo Hernandez. 

A lot of people will disagree with me here, but I think a striker and a left-back is all we need to address for the main starting XI. For me, Sanchez is good enough and there aren’t a lot of top goalkeepers available now. People will be shouting Mike Maignan’s name at me, but he’s been poor this year and also is strangely injury-prone for a goalkeeper. 

Some would argue that we should look to add a couple of experienced players into the squad too but I think we’ve made the choice to bring up a young side and our team will gain experience this year, although that will be mainly through tough lessons learned. 

The second area is stability. We should not even think about sacking Mauricio Pochettino or making other rash decisions. 

We’ve started poorly, there is no denying that, but what does sacking him achieve? The club needs to be stable and sustainable if it wants to challenge for titles and I do think the owners know that. 

It has, however, been difficult to be stable recently on and off the pitch. Off the pitch, we’ve seen unprecedented but necessary change. There has been a complete squad overhaul that makes today’s team almost unrecognisable from our team only two years ago. There has been a massive change in staff too which is only natural when a business changes ownership.

On the pitch, it’s been impossible to achieve stability as Pochettino hasn’t been able to put out anything near a full-strength squad out yet. 

Along with personnel and stability, the final area that we must get right is maturing. We have to let this squad mature. As hard as it is to sit there and watch how inconsistent we are, the good times will come if we just give the squad and management a bit of time. 

Of course, there are things the club can do to accelerate this maturing process, and they are both linked to personnel and stability. If we add a killer up front and the board don’t make any rash decisions, the maturity of the squad will naturally increase and the results will be much more consistent. 

Fan expectations also need to fade a bit for the time being and we need to be a tad more realistic. It’s not like last year when there was no hope, it’s the opposite. I’m convinced that this squad will be good but it just needs time to settle. 

Our results haven’t been good enough and this patience should not be a ‘get out of jail free card’ for the team or ownership, but this squad is more than capable of great things and showing a little bit of patience now will allow us to reap the rewards in years to come.

Pochettino has already asked for more power in the market from January and beyond after arriving in the middle of an overhaul and he hopes the club can “learn from their previous mistakes”. This tells me that necessary additions will be made in January and from then I hope we can kick on. UTC. 

By Will Reyner