Chelsea: These are the causes of the great crisis

Shortly before the hot phase of the season, Chelsea FC throws Exit coach Graham Potter, Frank Lampardtakes over. The English Premier League club may play Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, but Chelsea are only 11th in the league despite an unprecedented transfer fee. How did you get to this?

negative spiral

The London team has a particularly disastrous record in the English Premier League. European places are far away. With only 39 points after 30 Premier League matches, Chelsea are playing their weakest season in 28 years – in the 1994/95 season they had 37 points at the time of comparison, and Chelsea eventually finished 11th. To date, the club has only won ten times (nine draws and eleven defeats) in 30 matches.

jam

Chelsea have scored 29 goals in 30 league games this season – only twice in the club’s history have they scored fewer goals at this point in a league season: 1921/22 (23 goals) and 1923/24 (16 goals). The club’s top scorer is Kai Havertz, with seven goals. For comparison: Erling Haaland has already scored 30 goals for Manchester City in the Premier League alone.

The predicted targets value also shows how bad the attack will be. The statistically calculated value of expected goals is 38.4. The difference of the 29 results is -9.4. Only West Ham have a worse margin in the Premier League.

Over 600 million new players – without success

Since the start of the season, Chelsea have paid over 600 million francs to new players, more than any other club ever. In terms of success, these investments have not been feasible so far. The result is a list of gifted people who don’t teleport their powers to Earth. A good example: Ukrainian Mykhaylo Mudryk came to Chelsea from Donetsk in the winter and could cost up to 100 million francs with extra payments. In the previous nine matches, he was unable to show his worth. The 22-year-old forward managed just one assist. A real goalscorer is completely missing from the squad, but Chelsea do have five defenders, three of whom have come in for around 150 million francs since the start of the season.

3 buses – 104 changes in the first eleven

Graham Potter replaced Thomas Tuchel last September. Chelsea paid up to 24 million francs for the 47-year-old. The former Brighton boss did not have an easy situation from the start. Tuchel was popular with the fans due to his successes (winning the Champions League 2021). On the other hand, Potter did not succeed in imbuing the team with a clear tactical and terrifying concept until the very end. Example starting eleven: Chelsea have made 104 changes to the starting XI this season, at least 21 more than any other team. In contrast, leaders Arsenal have made just 26 changes.

Potter has already gone ahead again. Former midfielder and former manager Frank Lampard will take charge until the summer and is Chelsea’s third coach of the season. Former Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann and former Spain coach Luis Enrique should be the perfect solutions for this summer.

Desperate chiefs

Investors around the American billionaire Todd Bohle (and the Swiss Hansorg Weiss) took over the management of the club in the early summer of 2022 from the Russian Roman Abramovich. Not only did they spend huge sums on remittances, but they also caused irritation in other ways. Puyle reportedly wanted to sign Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer, but not Tuchel. The billionaire also suggested a 4-4-3 formation to the former coach, that is, a system of twelve players. There was also a rumor in the English media that Bohle apparently did not know that the Champions League income is not guaranteed, but you really need to get to one of the first four places in the table.

Problem with FIFA

Players who came in for millions were provided with extremely long contracts. The reason for monster contracts is to circumvent financial fair play. Transfer fees are amortized on the balance sheet over the entire term of the player’s contract. This means that higher transfer expenses are less of a burden on the club if the contract term is as long as possible. FIFA didn’t like that and they reacted. From the 2023/24 season, contracts are only allowed for a maximum of five years.

View comments