Where Does Man City's Dominance Leave Chelsea?
They've won the treble..how and when will Chelsea be back?
So, as most of us expected, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City have completed the treble - Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup winners in the same season. Only the second English club, following Man Utd in 1999, to achieve this feat. They’ve won 5 of the last 6 Premier League titles, Pep has now won 12 major trophies at Manchester City in 7 seasons.
Naturally, many Chelsea fans are left wondering where this leaves our club. Chelsea have been the most successful English side in terms of number of trophies won, since 1997. The expectations at Chelsea are, in the words of the ownership group in their recent statement, to be “consistently competing to win the Premier League, raise domestic cups and compete and win at the highest level in European football.”
No one can doubt the owner's ambition. They want to win. Purely from an investment point of view, the best way to increase the value of Chelsea is for the club to be successful on the pitch (mens and womens teams), winning trophies, and competing in the Champions League every season, with commercial and prize revenue through the roof.
From a fan point of view, it almost goes without saying pretty much every Chelsea fan aspires to this, and expects this, over the medium-long term. The question is, how do we get there, how long will it take - and above all, what is a realistic expectation in the short, medium and long term.
The first thing is to get our football structure right. January 2023 was an excellent window with some smart buys, and one big signing in Enzo Fernandez of a world class player who’s proved his worth instantly. However it's become clear we still need to establish a clear hierarchy and world class football structure, with a clear chain of command. As I’ve said elsewhere, we need to hire Michael Edwards to head up the men's football side of the club, working with head coach Mauricio Pochettino to build a team and club for sustained success.
Secondly, we need to recruit well. Not just in terms of talent or player profile, but in terms of mentality. We need workers, leaders, winners, strong characters who will fight for the club and make the fans proud. Pochettino makes a great deal of this, which should give us great confidence.
Thirdly, we need to be patient and let Pochettino build and develop this team. Young talent can be inconsistent at first, and it will take time to build the right mentality, chemistry and get players adapted to the philosophy and know it intuitively. Not to mention it will take time for the young talent to develop and mature. We have to be patient and accept a few bumps along the road - obviously not to the level we saw this past season, but we shouldn’t expect title winning form immediately, not for a while. Success will be one step at a time, making progress every year. Which means watching other clubs be successful in the meantime. We just have to hold our nerve and stick to our guns, and trust Pochettino to develop the team even in poor runs of form. To watchword at first, will be progress, nothing more. 5th/6th next season, 3rd/4th and a trophy the next, a title challenge in season 3 at the earliest, is realistic.
This brings me to my next point, how the Premier League is more competitive than ever. There are realistically about 6-7 teams who could probably say they’re good enough to play Champions League football. Teams which are prepared to invest big, or have a top class structure, or both.
It’s not as simple as Chelsea putting together a competitive squad under a top manager and boom, we’re back in the Champions League. The standard is much higher now, you’re talking about 70-75 points just to be in with a chance of top 4 now. Chelsea haven’t got to 75 points or more since 2017. Our highest points total in that period was 74 points, in 2021/2022. Also it should be noted we’re coming from 12th place and 44 points - which means we need to get 30-32 points more at least next season to reach the Champions League.
Of course a lot of fans will say “last time we had one game a week we won the league”, but that's not a valid comparison. Then we had a team of experienced winners, an elite squad, and of course, Eden Hazard. Now we have a largely young squad with no experience of winning trophies. To go from that to getting top 4 - even with the right additions - is a big ask.
We have a small advantage in that next season, due to the new UEFA rules, the Premier League may be awarded an extra Champions League place, so 5th place may well be a Champions League spot. Which will help us greatly and gives us a better chance of reaching Europe’s elite competition.
But with so many competitive teams now, it will be very difficult, no matter how good we are, and Chelsea fans need to be ready for this.
The model is Liverpool, who took 3 and a half years to be title contenders, and win a trophy under Jurgen Klopp. Once they got there though, they pretty much stayed competitive every season, played some great football, and won every trophy possible. It took them time, but they achieved it. The same is true for us.
We have a manager in Mauricio Pochettino capable of building a strong, potentially trophy winning team with a top mentality and team spirit, playing great football, and able to compete with Man City.
We just need to have the realism and patience to let him take us there.
Because if we do, in time Chelsea will be back. Make no mistake about it.
The Score