Well, we’ve arrived at the first international break of the season, and it’s a good time to look back at how the start of the season has gone. Well, from a Chelsea point of view, not brilliantly. This was seen as the season where Chelsea’s owners could really get sorted and implement their plan to get Chelsea back to regularly challenging for major honours. And in many respects, I think they have started to get the pieces in place. But we are seeing a repeat of what we saw under every coach who was in the dugout last season; that is the fact that Chelsea cannot seem to break teams down that are properly organised into a solid shape. We saw this in the most recent Premier League game against Nottingham Forest. Chelsea had the vast majority of possession and more shots by far than Forest did. But only two of those shots were on target. Meanwhile, a massive mistake at the back cost Chelsea dearly and gave Forest their first win over Chelsea in the league since 1997. But I have more hope from these first five games than I did watching a lot of Chelsea’s games last season. Did I want to see if Graham Potter could get Chelsea playing well and making progress? Yes. Was I surprised when he was removed as first team manager? Not at all. For all that the new owners apparently want to move away from the hire and fire methods of the previous ownership, they have the exact same ambition as Roman Abramovich. To win trophies and be a successful sports team. And that looked to be getting further and further away as Potter struggled on.
You can see what they are going for. Look sign young players with huge potential now, inculcate them at the club, and you could have a team that can be successful together for a very long time. But these players are exactly that. Young. There’s not much in the way of experienced professionals. That guidance is really going to have to come from the manager and his coaching staff. And so, Mauricio Pochettino might actually be the perfect man to have in charge for this period. His best work as a coach has most often come when he is in charge of a group that is young and hungry. That’s exactly what he had at Tottenham, at least for the first three years or so. Now, he is going to have access to that level of talent again, with a board who are clearly willing to spend huge amounts of money. Pochettino’s playing style that he like to implement isn’t actually that unusual. Pochettino coached teams tend to play with a high defensive line and try to press the opposition. In possession, his sides to look to keep the ball until a chance is created, with a reasonably high tempo of passing. This is an approach seen at a number of top sides around the world. Of course, each coach brings their own personal touches to a system and style of play, but the fact that Pochettino has a style that is more common across top level football will hopefully mean that the period needed for the players to adapt is shorter. Key players will also return from injury and that will only strengthen the manager’s hand as the season really gets going.
The start hasn’t quite been what Chelsea fans were hoping for, but there is optimism that the end of the season will be far more satisfactory than last.
Eat, Sleep, Blog, Repeat 