Ok - first of all, apologies for my lack of blogs this season. For one reason or another I haven't quite been able to dedicate the time to them. However, I feel now the time has come to summarise what's happened in the season so far with a blog about Chelsea's poor form and why things might be going wrong.
Firstly, I don't think it's one thing. I think it's a number of contributing factors. To begin I'd have to go back to the summer. I don't think the players had enough time off after the efforts they put in to win the title last season. But the fault there lies with the club - I've noticed the last few years Chelsea (and other Premier league clubs in fairness) have sent their teams on a 'post season tour'. I question the merits of this - as if going on a pre-season tour somewhere is not enough anymore? I understand the clubs reasoning is to make money but they should not do so at the risk of burning players out. On the 30th May at the end of last season the team were ordered to fly to Thailand for a friendly and then to Sydney for a friendly game three days later. Just over a week later all these players would then have to meet up with their international teams for the latest round of Euro qualifiers before having then to meet up with their clubs early July for pre season which saw us play our first game on July 23rd. So I'm not entirely sure the players had enough time off. Secondly I don't think the board backed Jose enough. I've seen heard were interested in Benteke who was interested in a move to Chelsea even though he knew he wouldn't have been number two to Costa - but Chelsea said no to the asking price of £30m and ended up with Falcao on loan. Falcao if we didn't already know it, is finished unfortunately. The pursuit of John Stones went on far too long, we should have lumped up the 30 or 40 million up front early doors. Is it too much money? Maybe, but that's the nature of the market, clubs have to predict how much money they will lose on shirt sales/merchandise as English players bring the most money in to them since there are so few. We were also apparently talking to Pogba quite late in the transfer window - but far too late. Yes we did fork out some money late in the window after a stuttering start but Jose brought in Pedro who hasn't exactly shone and Papy Djilobodji was brought in on deadline day as a result of not getting Stones. He has played one minute since.
As much as I love Mourinho, one of the very small criticisms I had of him the first time round (very small I must stress) was that he wasn't great with his signings - if you look at all the players he brought in first time round, there's probably a considerable percentage that didn't turn out too great (Kezman, Jarosik, Tiago to name a few) and this time round, there's been a few transfers that haven't turned out too great for one reason or another. Letting Bertrand go and bringing in Filipe Luis, I'm not sure what was a great decision (assuming it was Mourinho's and not Emenlo's call). He's since replaced Luis with Baba Rahman, as yet I don't quite see if Rahman is an adequate replacement. Also he sold Shurrle, who was having an ok-but-not-too-great first half of last season, and replaced him with Cuadrado, who turned out to be awful. The question of whether these are Mourinho or Emenlo's calls is subject to some speculation, I'm hearing that Djilobodji was signed on Emenlo's recommendation.
Also, he sold Kevin De Bruyne who has since gone on to become a hell of a player. Now maybe he had a bit of a bad attitude and didn't want to fight for his place as Jose instructed (bit similar to Pogba at Man Utd), but it still does not look great. David Luiz was an erratic defender at best but was a very good defensive midfielder I maintain, Benitez was the first manager who tried him there but maybe Jose didn't want to play him there because he had too much pride and didn't want to acknowledge anything his old rival did? Maybe. Juan Mata was another player (following Duff and Robben first time round) who became a victim of Mourinho's restrictive and defensive style of play and he was sold. Now obviously selling all of those players was instrumental in financing the deals for Costa, Fabregas and Matic who all had big parts to play in winning the title last season so of course it was the right decision BUT I do wonder - could we have tried keeping Luiz, De Bruyne and Mata and still signed Costa, Fabregas and Matic? I certainly think Chelsea would be a better team if they had kept all those players, for example we could have moved on Ramires and Obi Mikel who are frustrating players to watch and Oscar who is far too erratic and Pedro who hasn't yet shone, would not have needed to come. There is talk that Jose (providing he doesn't get sacked before January) will need to spend big to overhaul the squad in January so if Roman is resigned to spending a shed load more money to overhaul the squad, wouldn't it have made sense initially to keep Mata, De Bruyne and Luiz whilst still signing Costa, Fabregas and Matic? We'd certainly be a hell of a better team I do think.
While we're on the subject of Mourinho's restrictive tactics, is that another factor? We're hearing rumours (hopefully not true) that Hazard wants out as he wants to play for a team that allows him to express himself more, so he is trying to force a move to Real Madrid if we are to believe that. One of the things that really annoyed me about last season was the PSG home game, one of the worst performances I've seen for a long time. Personally I feel Mourinho's tactics were to blame - it seemed like we were sitting back too defensively, as a 0-0 would have sent us through on away goals. Even went they went down to 10 men after their most dangerous striker got sent off, we still played the same way, like we were the ones down to 10 playing away from home. Incredible game really, and I just wonder - this is just a theory - if the players secretly had some kind of resentment after that game? Our form certainly took a noticeable dip afterwards (not enough to derail our title challenge) as we drew with Southampton then had three wins in a row courtesy of goalkeeping errors (Hull 3-2 Stoke 2-1 QPR 1-0) but afterwards we seemed to get back on track as the title was in sight. But perhaps the ramifications of the ill-feeling has caught up to this season? Sometimes I do feel we are far too pragmatic and wish we would allow certain players to express themselves more, some players do need to have a free role but Jose's track record speaks for itself and he clearly doesn't need to tell anyone to do anything against his philosophy.
Then on the first game of the season there was the infamous 'Doctor row'. I think we all know this story by now. If we are to take what we know and assume Mourinho did literally have a go at them for simply doing their jobs, then unfortunately I don't think he has a leg to stand on but you would assume he wouldn't be that much of an idiot to do something like that and assume that there must have been more to it and there was something going on behind the scenes. Was she disruptive and a distraction? Has the row affected and distracted the team? Who knows, but one thing is for sure it seems the team are still suffering the ramifications of this row.
Finally, there is the simple point that is more than likely the main cause of Chelsea's decline - that the players are just not performing anywhere near the required standard. A fair few players who made key contributions last season have been awful this term. Ivanovic has been one of our worst players, making crucial mistakes in almost every game, yet Mourinho did not seem to drop him! I can't work that out, although it must be something to do with the fact he doesn't trust Baba Rahman enough, although surely he needs time to settle in? Terry is a spent force sadly (that was always going to happen even after the phenomenal efforts of last season) but I feel Mourinho wrongly made him a scapegoat when he subbed him at half time against Man City. He struggled to get back into the team afterwards where as Ivanovic seemed un-droppable. Fabregas was making loads of assists this time last season but is a shadow of that player. He normally trails off in the second half of the season but seemed to have carried his traditional end of season form into the beginning of this season. Costa has two goals so far this season - is he happy in England? He came back for pre-season overweight which is amazingly unprofessional. Last season he was banging the goals in and along with Fabregas, you have two players right there who were two key cogs in the Chelsea machine that started last season so well but are not performing this season. Perhaps that is the simple answer to Chelsea's problems but you would like to think Chelsea are more than just a two man team. Matic has also been under performing, Zouma doesn't not appear to be ready yet and appears to lack concentration. The players all appear to have lost confidence, they look scared to make decisions and indecisive which is so unlike us. Maybe we are missing Courtois who has been injured for a while. Where are the young players we were supposedly bringing through - what about Ruben Loftus Cheek? Is he going to get a chance?
One thing is for sure is that I am fully 100% behind Mourinho despite all the points I've raised and suggested - his track record is one of the best there is left in the game now Sir Alex Ferguson has retired and he also loves the club so we know his heart is in it. Sometimes I would like to see him come out and just admit the other team were better but I know he loves making outbursts to wind up the media and deflect attention so I understand why he does it, and Ferguson was doing it for years. Are the players are fed up with his outbursts which some reports have suggested? I doubt that myself, as I can't imagine them paying attention to what he would say to the media anyway. The media as well have been VERY harsh with Jose and Chelsea and I'm glad some people I've spoken to have noticed this as well, so I'd like to think there are more neutral people out there who have clocked the media's agenda as well. The whole debate about Chelsea players 'surrounding the referee' is one thing that really gets me as ALL teams have done it one time or another but this has come up a few times in Chelsea games lately, with certain commentators (I'm looking at you, BT Sport commentators v Liverpool) condemning Chelsea for this. The incident against Man City with Kompany v Costa where Kompany should have been sent off but Sky Sports chose to focus on Costa's angry reaction (and he was entitled to be angry) which wasn't even red card worthy (praise to Thierry Henry for remaining un-biased while this was going on and pointing out that if Costa had done what Kompany did we would be saying what a disgrace Costa is).
I do worry what Roman is thinking regarding whether or not to get rid of Jose and I really hope he doesn't, as I don't think he can replace him with anyone better. He did for the first time ever, refuse to sack Jose after Jose won nothing in his first season back despite sacking all other managers who had won nothing in a season so that was a sign that he was committed to building a dynasty with Jose. His patience must surely be getting tested now though. Someone I met once said recently that Roman cares a lot about the champions league and as long as we are doing well in that, then Jose is possibly safe for now, and as long as Jose hangs on until January then he will more than likely let Jose bring in reinforcements that are badly needed.
One thing is for sure I fully behind Jose and hope he will turn it around - as much as its been fun to remember what it was like to be a mid - table team in the nineties, I'm not sure my heart can take much more so I hope we can turn it around soon!
