Chelsea FC: Reality

Now back to reality, CFC are out of the Champions League (although we are in the final sixteen in the second tier Europa competition), CFC sit 3rd in the English Premier League, CFC have a mouth-watering match against Manchester United in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup (March 10th), CFC lost 1 month ago in the Capital One Cup to eventual winners Swansea (who deserve praise for their first trophy in 100 years, which in a way puts our expectations into perspective).

CFC has played 49 games which is more than any other top flight club in Europe (when you win more trophies your club gets places in elite competitions like the FIFA Club World Cup and Europa SuperCup) and have not had a week off since November 2012. Imagine playing any sport competitively at the highest level an average of every 4 days, with a thin squad and you can imagine the fatigue and resulting impact on the club's results. In addition, we fired our trophy winning coach after 8 months (in late November) in the panic move of the century and hired an interim coach that Chelsea fans despise from his days at Liverpool.

But there is good news, the new coach has been rotating the squad and they did win today (albeit by slim margin 1-0). CFC had scoring chances the entire game (Oscar was particularly impressive although he should have put at least 1 of his 4 chances in the back of the net). Since the turn of the year, CFC has dominated teams but not been able to put them away and this was almost the case again today. CFC has loads of talent both in the first team, bench,  youth academy and players we have loaned out to get more experience at other clubs.

Unfortunately, without a defined playing style (too many coaching changes renders this ineffective as coaches just focus on getting results) we will never have a defined playing style. FC Barcelona is Abramovich's benchmark: a team that has a beautiful playing style and wins trophies. Their approach to the game is consistent from their infamous La Masia youth academy to the Barcelona B team to the first team. It takes patience, talent acquisition and support from the owner, board of directors, coach and commitment from the players. If any of these variables are missing then it debilitates the effort of the other parts and the project will never be completed. Until our owner becomes more hands-off (a la Daniel Snyder), we will win trophies but never have stability. In addition with Financial Fair Play rules keeping teams like Chelsea's spending in check, it is more important than ever to build through the club's academy.