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Chelsea FC - The Shed End

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Sikkert ikke alle av dere som er på /r/ChelseaFC, men sakser inn et bra innlegg som ble postet der.

 

"Everything is wrong with the club, from top to bottom.

The management structures are a disaster. The decision making structures are even worse. The accountability is zero.

I don't blame Benitez as much as I blame the decision making process that led to him being hired. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely detest him, but the process by which he was hired is what is truly wrong with this club.

It's a shambles. The squad, despite hundreds of millions being spent, is a joke. The manager is a joke. The board is a joke.

Commercially, the club is very well run. I don't particularly care about that however. I only care about the football, the football decision making and the football management.

As a bit of background, we have a Director of Football and football board that effectively make all the squad-related decisions and personnel acquisition. The manager has next to no input in this.

Let's start in 2010. We let Carvalho, Ballack et al go, which is fine in itself. The problem is in replacing them. Our only signings of note were Ramires and Benayoun. That's it. To replace a vast number of valued squad members. When the board recognised that we were severely lacking depth (especially in midfield - remembering that we lost Ballack, Deco, Belletti and Joe Cole that summer) they responded by spending £75m on Fernando Torres and David Luiz in January. What did that do to fix our squad? Next to nothing - we gained another striker where we already had three (Drogba, Anelka, Sturridge) and gained a centre back which wasn't our main problem area (although we did need one at the time, I do seem to recall).

So in 2010-11, what's the verdict on the squad building? On replenishing the squad with valued contributors in all areas? Remembering that we largely played 4-3-3 at the time, our out and out midfield options at the time were Ramires, Lampard, Essien and Obi. Zhirkov and Malouda did jobs at various times. That's it.

Why did this happen? This happened because of the organisational vacuum at the top of the club. This club is run at Roman Abramovich's discretion. When he wants someone, he does his level best to get them cf. Andrei Shevchenko; Fernando Torres. In lieu of decent planning and decision making, it was instead deemed prudent to spend £75m (of which £50m is definitely wasted, the other £25m, the jury is out on) on two players. What does this say about the organisation of the club to you?

Here's the best bit - what happens to the men responsible for the dismal squad? Nothing really. Abramovich pet Emenalo is promoted to Director of Football and Gourlay etc keep their jobs. Zero accountability. Apart from for the manager. Somehow managing to finish second with that disaster of a squad is deemed to be not good enough for Roman. Who does he choose to sack? Not Frank Arnesen, he's already going to Hamburg having had enough of the way the club is run. No, he sacks the man who dragged that team to second, Carlo Ancelotti.

For the people surrounding Abramovich, for the people directly answerable to Abramovich, zero accountability, zero responsibility. Do what Roman wants and you keep your job. Does that sound like a well-run football club to you?

Part 1 of 3.

It's 2011. Bright young thing, Andre Villas-Boas is the hottest property on the football manager market. But what has he really achieved? He's had a sensational season, but where is the detailed planning? Where is the analysis of what's he like as a person? Where is the long term plan? Is Villas-Boas part of the long term plan? Will he get significant funds to implement his ideas? Will he be given significant funds to help move out the old guard and progress the club?

Or! Will he be hamstrung by a complete lack of organisation at the top? Will be be undermined by promising him the complete support of the board and the owner, yet not giving him the appropriate funds to build the squad in his image? Will he labour under the misapprehension that he has the owner's full support, alienate half the playing staff and then get sacked? Who knows, let's see.

Moving out over the summer, mainly lots of youth and ex-youth. Zhirkov the main one to go. You'll remember the midfield point I made before, at this time we played 4-3-3. When Michael Essien ruptured his ACL in August, our options were Ramires, Lampard and Mikel. Not to forget an extremely raw 19 year old Oriol Romeu (for whom you have to wonder why he was available at £3m from Barcelona) and Josh McEachran, who would eventually go out on loan. Essien's injury caused a last minute purchase of Raul Meireles. As you can see, the planning of this isn't great. Injuries do happen, but we're fairly light there anyway.

As for the moving out of the old guard, this isn't done in the summer. That would make too much sense. Instead we're going to make two valued members of the squad train away from the first team with the transfer window already shut. Whose decision this is, it's not quite clear, but as we will come to see (with Malouda), perhaps it wasn't Villas-Boas' decision after all. What does this say about the organisational structures at the club? Does it scream "well thought out planning, by a sensible and rational football policy" or does it scream "ad hoc idiocy"?

There is no plan. There is no idea of where the club is going. Andre Villas-Boas makes mistakes, sure, but there is nothing like the support needed for a 33 year old manager coming into one of the biggest bear pits in football. He is thrown in with his hands tied behind his back and guess what? It goes very wrong. He is thrown out of Cobham with the other pariahs and Roberto Di Matteo somehow manages to guide the club to win the Champions League. However, this isn't a true indicator of the health of the club. With a depleted/inadequate squad, the team rightfully finish sixth.

So who's to blame? Is it Villas-Boas? Well, we've sacked him already. We tried the long term plan and the patience with the manager but we could only really be bothered with it until March. Time to rip it all up and start again.

Part 2 of 3.

The Champions League win glosses over what a disaster our squad is, so the board decide to rectify that. A lot of it is positive; we need a right back - good purchase in Azpilicueta. We desperately need some attacking players - excellent purchases in Hazard and Oscar.

However, where do they fit into a formation? Eden Hazard largely played in a 10 role behind the striker for Lille, yet Juan Mata has been doing that for Chelsea. Oscar largely played in a 10 role behind the striker for Internacional and the Brazilian national team, yet Chelsea already have Juan Mata. Oh well, I'm sure it will work out. They're good players. Victor Moses and Marko Marin are added as depth options. Moses - great signing.

Does this not strike anyone else as having an enormous amount of panic in it? We suddenly realised that we had lost the majority of our mainstays in attack over the past season and a half - Drogba, Anelka, Kalou and Malouda (as he was supposed to leave). We needed a new attack anyway. Could these players fit into a 4-2-3-1? Of course, they're good players. They'll work it out.

What about the asinine double pivot policy? Well, we have a still raw Romeu and in Mikel a player who will be missing for a month and a half over an extremely busy period. Not to forget two players in Lampard and Ramires possibly the complete opposite of what you want in that formation. What do the board do? Get rid of two viable rotation options. Essien leaves on loan and utterly bizarrely, Meireles leaves after the close of the transfer window in England. Why was this done? What was the thinking? Was it genuinely that we would be okay with four players for two spots? Who is accountable for this? Is it the manager? Is it the director of football? Is it the football board? Where is the responsibility? Who knows.

The striking options - Torres and Sturridge, are both pathetic. Torres because he's finished as a footballer at the highest level and Sturridge because he hasn't got the mental fortitude to play for this club. Yet these are the only two options available to Roberto Di Matteo.

It has been suggested that Di Matteo was undermined by the board so as to make it easier for Roman to sack him. He was never supposed to win the European Cup. Just look at the body language when he went to get the trophy. Does anyone else have a rational explanation of why Essien and Meireles were let go? As soon as the ship hits a rocky patch (as tends to happen with Chelsea), Di Matteo is sacked. He is replaced by a man suggested by Director of Football, Michael Emenalo. That man is Rafael Benitez, a man so utterly detested by the fans that they're in revolt. The man with the plan, with the grand scheme of what he wants his Chelsea to look like, sacked the man who had the fans on his side and who had given him all he wanted when he first found an interest in football in 2003. The man with the plan has divided the support with one move.

The sacking is justified by saying that we were in danger of failing to reach our targets and progressing as a football club. A few months later, Rafael Benitez is doing worse than Roberto Di Matteo. He has a worse record and the fans cannot contain their revulsion for the man. To make things worse, despite every single person in the Western Hemisphere realising that Chelsea's squad is utterly pathetic, the football board do not strengthen in January. Players like Moussa Sissoko are ignored in favour of leaving things as they are, with two midfielders for two midfield spots. This is even without speaking of the 25 players we have out on loan. That's twenty five. Twenty five players on our books that we haven't found use for. Twenty five players some of whom could contribute right now. Twenty five players whom the football board have purchase yet cannot find use for.

So where's the accountability? Who is in charge of the squad? Who is in charge of the decision making?

Is this club run like a well-organised football club or is it run like an Early Modern English court, with factions all vying to impress the King? With people undermining eachother in every direction? With shady, unnamed individuals gaining the trust of the owner and feeding him what he wants to hear?

Where is the plan? Are we playing 4-2-3-1? In that case, let's get some midfielders who can play in it, not three number 10s, a Brazilian who is the third man in a 4-3-3 and Frank Lampard, who has never played defensive midfielder in his life. Where is the communication to put the squad together? Where is the unanimity of setting out the plan?

The entire organisational structure of the club depends on the whims of one man and of getting the attention of one man. Have any of you heard of Marina Granovskaia? She's allegedly the most powerful person at the club, after Roman obviously. Remember Piet de Visser? Remember dear old Avram? The owner surrounds himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear.

That is why the organisational structures at the club are a shambles - because they're run by a man who does not have a single clue about football."

 

TLDR; Det er ikke Rafa som er problemet, det er det sirkuset av en klubb vi er supportere av som er problemet.

Endret av Zeromac
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