- May 31, 2022
- Olaoluwa Nwobodo
The takeover by the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital Consortium is now complete. The process that started on 10th March 2022 has finally come to a successful end. Unfortunately, this is the easy part for Boehly and the ownership group. The much more difficult part is filling the shoes of Roman Abramovich and keeping Chelsea at the level Abramovich left them at.
At the very least, Boehly will have to maintain the excellence built by Abramovich. He’d have to keep Chelsea at the level they are and then take them higher. The marked difference between taking over a relatively low-key club and taking over a bona-fide European giant is that it’s easy to build on relatively nothing. It’s far more difficult to build on what Chelsea has currently. This is why Boehly’s first and most important task is maintaining what Chelsea has.
The first step to achieve that is by restoring the team to the level of their rivals. No, not exactly making signings that put Chelsea Men on the same squad strength/quality as the rivals, but making purchases that address real problems in the squad. The centerback position is an easy one because Chelsea (Men) has just lost key players in that area.
For Boehly to accomplish this, he has to work closely with Marina Granovskaia (if she stays on) but more importantly; Chelsea Men’s head coach Thomas Tuchel. The emphasis is placed on the men’s team and not the Women’s team or the Academy because Chelsea’s strength would be mainly determined by the success of the Men’s team.
The good thing is that Boehly has expressed a desire to keep the German head coach, so you can objectively say he’s on the right track.
Chelsea Women are currently one of the best women’s teams in the world thanks to Chelsea legend and tactical mastermind Emma Hayes. The same cannot be said about the men’s team, who isn’t even one of the best teams in their country, talk more of the world.
Chelsea Men had an unsatisfactory league season in the sense that they finished in a lower position and more importantly with fewer points than was realistically possible. There are many things that contributed to this fact. Chelsea’s attack did not perform as well as Tuchel or any Chelsea fan would have liked. A glaring issue is the sheer number of forwards they have on their roster.
Mason Mount, Kai Havertz, Romelu Lukaku, Timo Werner, Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech, and Callum Hudson-Odoi are all forwards that Tuchel had to rotate throughout the season. At first glance it looks like “Options galore!!”, however, closer scrutiny shows that Tuchel could not persevere with certain players when they were out of form, as there was always a thought that “maybe the guy who’s not playing would make the difference”.
In other words, Tuchel had too many options. This has created unhappiness amongst the forwards, which makes sense. Players want to play and need time on the pitch to gather momentum. The more time on the pitch they get, the more in-form they get. Time away from the pitch, means time they have to make up for when they start playing again. The circumstances meant that many Chelsea forwards did not see consistent playing time, which affected their form. It’s easy to pontificate that these forwards did not deserve to play because they did not show consistency, however, it’s difficult to show consistency when you play two matches and are benched for the next five.
Too many options for Tuchel then means Chelsea needs to sell some players. None of this is easy, as Chelsea doesn’t have forwards on low wages. This is what makes Boehly’s job difficult. To maintain the success he met, he has to start by rebuilding the squad. The first steps to rebuilding the squad would be recruiting top centerbacks to replace key players Chelsea has lost; and selling some of Chelsea’s many forwards, none of which would be easy.