Chelsea 2-1 West Ham (Neto 64′, Wan-Bissaka og 74’| Bowen 42′)
STAMFORD BRIDGE — For everything Chelsea have done and continue to do wrong under the Boehly/ Clearlake ownership, it would be uncharitable not to say there’s a plan. Well, not one plan, but multiple. There’s Enzo Maresca’s plan, co-sporting director Paul Winstanley’s plan, co-owner Behdad Eghbali’s plan.
Then there’s co-sporting director Laurence Stewart’s plan and co-owner’s Todd Boehly’s plan. This is before we even get onto the remnants of Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino’s plans. The less said about sporting director Boehly’s plan, the better.
All these plans, all this supposed genius and cash and effort, leave 19-year-old Marc Guiu replacing Nicolas Jackson 52 minutes into Chelsea’s unconvincing win over West Ham, more than doubling his Premier League total to date. Jackson started furiously rubbing his hamstring halfway through the first half and hadn’t stopped.
You can’t fault Guiu’s effort, a man who spends his days off pressing Tesco staff and heading passers-by. But when even he’s writhing around in the penalty area with a few minutes to go, you really have to wonder how Chelsea ended up here.
However Maresca frames it, January has been dire. A month ago Chelsea needed reinforcements or upgrades at striker, winger, central midfielder and goalkeeper.
Their only signing since has been 19-year-old midfielder Mathis Amougou, veteran of eight Ligue 1 starts for Saint-Etienne, and they’ve lost left-back/ central midfield cover in Renato Veiga and their supporting No 10/ left-winger in Joao Felix. Axel Disasi has strengthened a direct rival. These departures might not seem fundamental, but they further unbalance an already unbalanced squad.
Through load management and luck, Chelsea have largely avoided significant injuries in 2024-25. Cole Palmer and Moises Caicedo have started every league match, and Jackson, Levi Colwill, Marc Cucurella, Noni Madueke, Jadon Sancho, Pedro Neto, Enzo Fernandez, Tosin Adarabioyo and Christopher Nkunku have all been available for 22 of 24 Premier League games.
But the squad has now reached such fundamental dependence on a few individuals that one injury could ruin a season. Maresca said Jackson and Guiu believe they are “ok”, but that fiasco could re-emerge. The Italian clearly now views Guiu as a serious rotation option, and he said the same of Tyrique George.
Both are perfectly good young players, but neither have ever started a Premier League match. George has six top-flight minutes. Whatever the long-term aims, in the short-term this squad is getting obviously worse. Right-back is the only completely secure position despite the remarkable turnover.
The blame can be shared. Maresca’s man management of Veiga and Felix, largely through his two-tier squad system, hasn’t worked. The façade of harmony helped navigate the Conference League group stage, but lack of first-team minutes has now forced out two players who should have had roles to play.
But Felix is also the crowning failure in a failing sporting director partnership, a signing which benefitted the balance sheet and nothing more.
£42m bought three Premier League starts and one goal, a fiasco of scouting wildly exacerbated by the fact he had already spent six months at the club, all to facilitate Conor Gallagher’s exit. Off to AC Milan he goes, hoping to rebuild a career which was never really built in the first place.
Given Pedro Neto’s struggles to assimilate, Chelsea’s last signing which unquestionably raised the level of their first XI is Cole Palmer, on 31 August 2023. They own eight goalkeepers below the required standard. For the financial outlay, this is not good enough.
On Monday Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall watched on from the stands, Mykhailo Mudryk and Omari Kellyman from god knows where, each representing elements of a deeply flawed recruitment structure. This is what happens when most players are signed first for their potential financial upside, before their footballing utility.
There’s a reason no other Premier League side has co-sporting directors. It’s the same reason they don’t have co-managers, or the vast majority don’t have co-controlling owners. As The Office (US) quote goes, “Where would Catholicism be without two popes?”. Too many competing voices and egos nullify each other under the illusion of cooperation.
This is the root of the wider sense of incoherence and competing forces creating something incomplete and inadequate. Chelsea’s executive structure involves too many people with too much power, but none are willing to cede that power for the good of the whole. The ownership civil war has quietened but the core problems remain.
Victory over West Ham and a return to the top four should do little to cover this chaos with a veneer of calm. Last summer’s mistakes forced Chelsea to stagnate, frozen at the level Pochettino left them at. January’s failings could launch full-scale regression.
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