Saturday, September 2, 2023

Chelsea 0 - Nottm Forest 1

Spending Money Is the Easy Part

Week after week, the emotions of us Chelsea faithful seem to swing wildly up and down. Depending on the moment, Chelsea are either about to take the league by storm with the most aggressive and exciting transfer strategy the league has ever seen, or destined to mediocrity and humiliation because of the overbearing arrogance of that very same strategy. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle.

Before we can even talk about the game, we need to talk about the £1 billion elephant in the room - Chelsea’s transfer market outlay. Those in favor of the strategy will quickly retort that that figure doesn’t reflect the net spending, and that Chelsea have been wise to offload a number of players this summer for almost £300 million. Those against the strategy will look to the poor performances of arrivals like Marc Cucurella, Mykhailo Mudryk, and even Moises Caicedo and understandably ask, are they worth it?

Watching Chelsea this season, it is abundantly clear that the psychology of the transfer market is having a deleterious affect on the manager, the players themselves, and the fanbase. For manager Mauricio Pochettino, such extravagant levels of spending breed urgency. Yes, all managers need time to develop their system and implement their philosophy, but having access to the very best players, results are expected quickly. For the players, they feel a need to prove the worth of their price tag. This is most evident in the likes of Mykhailo Mudryk and Nicolas Jackson, who play with a clear sense of anxiousness and pressure in needing to prove how good they are. For the fans, such insane levels of spending inflate expectations and put even more pressure on the manager and players to perform at elite levels immediately.

Fans will not want to hear it, but the most important watchword for Chelsea right now, especially in light of today’s performance against Nottingham Forest (NF), is patience.

Chelsea face three key hurdles to success, two of which are directly related to transfer market spending and the third partially related. They are, in no particular order of importance:

  • Turnover

  • Youth

  • Injury

It is easy to look to £1 billion of spending and ask, “how is Chelsea not among the top 3 teams in the league?”. Look a bit deeper, however, and you’ll see that the spending is only one pillar, and the easiest at that, of the strategy.

For starters, such spending has ensured a high degree of turnover. Check out this incredible chart put together by Reddit User O-4 that looks at how much the squad has changed simply from June to September of this year, not even taking into account turnover that extends to last summer:

With only a handful of preseason games, three weeks into the new campaign, and a squad size that demands a consistent degree of rotation, these players simply haven’t had enough time to build a strong familiarity with each other.

Then you layer in the youth. According to The Athletic, Chelsea’s squad “had an average age of 23 years and 139 days — and that was with the Premier League’s oldest outfield player Thiago Silva, who turns 39 next month, in it.” New signings in particular - Caicedo, Enzo Fernandes, Nicolas Jackson, and Levi Colwill - have an average age of 21. In short, what Chelsea is buying is potential, not a proven product just yet.

Most painfully, quite literally, is the number of injuries Chelsea players have sustained so far. Look back to the above chart; every name in yellow, orange, or red is an injured player. These players are not only young and inexperienced, but must now further hamper their development by spending more time in the medical rehab than they do on the field.

Losing at home, without scoring, to what is broadly agreed to be a potential relegation team, hurts the pride. It hurts the pride especially more given the vast chasm in resources between the two clubs. Rival fans are right and fair to mock Chelsea’s ownership and transfer plan for delivering results like these.

This does not mean all hope is lost. My biggest fear now is simply that Poch does not get enough time to continue his project. Hindsight is what it is, but one has to wonder if Graham Potter was perhaps an early victim of this transfer market madness. Alas, we have who we have now, and must look for how to build a solid foundation that delivers promising results soon. It will require patience. And now, onto the game…

Moment of the Match

Nicolas Jackson Misses an Open Goal

There were really two moments to choose between here - either Nicolas Jackson’s atrocious miss in front of goal or Caicedo’s giveaway in midfield which led to the only goal. Both were daggers in the hearts of Chelsea fans, but to me the Jackson miss hurt more. Perhaps that is because Chelsea have struggled so emphatically with scoring over the past year; perhaps it is selfishly because Jackson is in my fantasy team. Simply stated, these are the moments where Chelsea prospects need to prove their worth.

Player of the Match

Malo Gusto

It was a pretty sorry performance all around, so it was tough to pick a best performance from among the squad. That being said, I think a lot has to be said for how Malo Gusto has come into a difficult role and performed well on both ends of the pitch, making some key defensive blocks by sprinting back into position, and working to build the attack on the right side. There is still plenty of room for improvement, especially with the quality of his crosses, but I appreciate seeing a degree of consistency week to week, and he is a crucial backup to Reece James.

Quick Takes

The Positives

  • Cole Palmer provides urgency. This take is definitely tempered with only 30 minutes of game time for Palmer, but you love to see a player with fast feet and an attacking instinct. Palmer has a real chance, if he has the talent, to establish himself as one of Chelsea’s key attacking players. He had a few incisive passes in his brief time on the field today, and we’re going to need to see a lot more of that if Chelsea are to stay in the top half of the table this season.

  • Possession is a foundation. Obviously dominating the ball doesn’t mean much when you aren’t able to convert your chances. Still, a lot must be said of the system Poch has put in place, which allows Chelsea to dominate the ball, get it back quickly, and push forward aggressively. It’s an excellent foundation to build upon, and though the attack still remains frustratingly inept, it is helpful to have only one key area to work on rather than having to balance a multitude of failings.

The Negatives

  • Finishing. I spoke to this above, but I really do believe that an element of the lack of finish is simply the lack of familiarity that these players have with each other. There is a noticeable degree of surprise when an attacking player receives the ball in an attacking area, as if it is a miracle and a rare moment where they have the ball. The Chilwell non-shot last week and Jackson’s miss this week are the two clearest examples. The frustrating thing is that this is hard to train for. It takes composure, and rhythm, to build the confidence that leads to elite finishing. Hopefully by putting players in the right positions frequently enough, scoring will come.

  • Stupid Mistakes. If you look at the last two losses, they both involved silly giveaways towards the back that allowed the opposition to quickly capitalize and score with the defense out of position. Some of this will be solved with increased playing time and comfort, but there needs to be more discipline and mistake-free football. It is most jarring when it comes from the likes of Caicedo, who is a brilliant player. You can tell in these moments that there is just too much pressure on the players that is distracting from their focus.