The Unraveling of Chelsea: Todd Boehly’s Reign of Coaching Chaos

If only it were easier to change owners than managers, Chelsea fans would feel more reassured about the future of their club. Because the most surprising thing about the announcement of the dismissal disguised as “departure by mutual consent” of Mauricio Pochettino is that it ultimately surprised no one. The rumor had been circulating for some time, as had the names of possible successors. And then Chelsea remains Chelsea, this machine for devouring coaches, which has even more of an appetite since Todd Boehly and his friends from the Clearlake background took the place of Roman Abramovitch, who nevertheless had very sharp fangs.

We might as well immediately draw up the list of victims of the regime in place since May 30, 2022 at Stamford Bridge, leaving aside the short-lived interim of Bruno Saltor, Graham Potter’s deputy who only stayed long enough to prepare for a 0-0 against Liverpool in April 2023 before leaving. Thomas Tuchel, European champion with the Blues a year and two months earlier, lasted 100 days. Graham Potter survived just over twice that, dismissed a month after guiding Chelsea to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, ten days before the semi-final first leg against Real Madrid. Magnificent timing.

Mauricio Pochettino

Credit: AFP

Pochettino, nonsense on a sporting level

Frank Lampard, recalled in disaster to close the 2022-23 season, finished with the worst winning percentage in the club’s history (9.09%, or one success in eleven matches). Pochettino will therefore have lasted 325 days. All our best wishes therefore accompany the Argentinian’s probable successor, Enzo Maresca, the former assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City who orchestrated Leicester City’s return to the Premier League, Championship title at stake.

That the decision to part ways with Pochettino does not make the slightest sense on a sporting level, everyone agrees, except Boehly and others, of course. His first few months at Stamford Bridge had been difficult to manage, and Chelsea had so quickly lost contact with the clubs leading the race that any hope of qualifying for the Champions League had vanished before Christmas. This was not a surprise in itself, as the Blues squad had gone through an upheaval – wanted and executed by their owners, not their coach – without equivalent and without precedent in the history of English football.

Moreover, if, at the beginning, the results were not those that one had the right to expect from a club accustomed to the summits and which had spent a billion on the transfer market, the performances were characterized by their inconsistency, not by their mediocrity. It happened that Chelsea disappointed, but it also happened that Chelsea seduced. Chelsea could lose at home to Nottingham Forest, but Chelsea could also finish the season unbeaten against champions Manchester City – and having won five goals.

Chelsea fans complain to Todd Boehly

Credit: Getty Images

20 injuries and 1,745 days of absence which ruined the season

How would it have been possible to demonstrate regularity when Pochettino not only had to integrate the twelve (!) players who arrived at the club between July 1 and September 1, 2023, most of them still very tender, but also deal with the injuries that continued to affect people he hoped to be able to count on, like Reece James, Ben Chilwell or Christopher Nkunku? Passionate about statistics as they are, Boehly and his team could perhaps have asked themselves if, all things considered, the irregularity of their team could not also be linked to the twenty players who were injured during season, missing 1,745 days of competition in total

?

Despite this, Chelsea had turned their heads around since mid-February, recording just one league defeat after that date, beating Newcastle, Manchester United and Tottenham in that time, and delivering a superb sprint down the stretch – five matches, five wins – to secure seventh place which will allow them to return to Europe next season. Oh – Chelsea also reached the League Cup final and the FA Cup semi-final, only losing after giving Liverpool and Manchester City a scare.

Boehly, Eghbali and Feliciano convinced they know everything better than everyone else

This will therefore not have been enough for Todd Boehly, Bedad Eghbali and José Feliciano, the triumvirate of heads that we dare not describe as ‘thinking’ at Chelsea Football Club. No more than the explosion of Cole Palmer in the foreground, he who finished second in the ranking of goal scorers in the Premier League with 22 goals, or the development of Conor Gallagher, starting 37 times out of 38 in the championship, or the fact that Mudryk, Fernandez and Caicedo now look like the players Chelsea thought they bought. Perhaps Pochettino does not correspond to the idea they have of an American head coach. Maybe he is too close to his players [et représentait] . Who knows. [un modèle de] This is because Boehly, Eghbali and Feliciano are convinced that they know everything better than everyone else and do not hesitate to assert this with breathtaking arrogance during the investor conferences to which they are regularly invited. Here’s what Eghbali had to say at the October 2022 Invest In Sports Summit, which speaks for itself. “We thought that Chelsea was an asset, a business that was not that well managed, whether for football, sports or promotional (sic)

a significant opportunity for us, who needed a beachhead to then consider [ndlr: John W. Henry et FSG] multi-ownership of clubs. We looked at that, and we think that European sports are probably twenty years behind US sports in terms of commercial and data sophistication.” That says it all.

We might as well leave the final words to Jürgen Klopp, who said them during a reception organized in his honor on Tuesday evening in Liverpool. “We should really be happy to have these owners

and not the guys who bought clubs in London and stuff,” he said. Everyone got the hint. “With them in charge, I wouldn’t have lasted a year at Liverpool. “Great progress, but not enough, fire him!” A year later: “fire him.” Here they are, finally, playing the kind of football that makes people think they’re back – and they fire the manager anyway!

Yes, really, good luck, Enzo Maresca.

2024-05-29 22:14:00
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