Coffee is Instant. Success is Not.
Coffee is Instant. Success is Not.
Andre Villas-Boas’s visage has leapt across many extremes over the last month and a half. From quiet confidence to near-childish defiance, and more recently, after falling at home to Arsenal and Liverpool, a mix of anger and worry.
Football fans can be fickle in an almost cruel way when it comes to club managers. It comes with the territory. If a club isn’t doing well, it’s assumed that the man at the helm is at fault. “Get out the axe, let’s have his head!”, they scream. The footballing equivalent of that barbaric scene in Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto. But hold on a minute, won’t you?
What Chelsea FC is experiencing right now is a delicate mixture of poor form, and transition, fuelled by poor long-term planning. A grim, almost tragic comedy of errors. Let’s scoot back a few years, to the beginning of the Abramovich regime. Money, new signings, new hopes, new dreams. Chelsea are on a high. They have Premier League titles, the most enviable squad in the land. The time is ripe to consolidate. To lay the foundations for a quality youth academy and procure and groom new talent. But that piece of the puzzle is ignored. Perhaps it’s because the owner of the toy-box wants a certain Ukrainian plaything and will pay any price to get it.
It’s been the same old story for Chelsea. Roman Abramovich has always wanted instant success, instant results, instant everything. It worked once with the initial investment, but as anyone with a degree in finance will tell you, money doesn’t grow on trees. You can only overhaul your squad so often without some talent coming from within. The lack of attention paid to young talent is a harsh reality that Chelsea are coming to realise.
Every single team that has managed prolonged success in the English League, from King Kenny’s troops to Arsenal’s Invincibles to Fergie’s Class of ‘99 has been a combination, not just of youth and experience, but of investment and homegrown talent. Daniel Sturridge and Josh McEachran apart, Chelsea’s academy has had absolutely nothing to be proud of. Most of the kids were offloaded without even being given a chance, eventually returning to shine at the likes of Swansea.
As it stands now, Chelsea are in a state of transition. Sadly, they have no choice but to re-invest in the squad in key positions. Frank Lampard may still get into the right place at the right time, but he has no legs. Ashley Cole, who has always been suspect defensively, is absolutely woeful at the moment (just ask Glen Johnson). Drogba and Anelka are well past their prime. John Terry isn’t the defensive wall he was four years ago. Those are five or six key positions that need to be filled by quality talent to compete for top honours. Given Chelsea’s infrastructural disaster, splashing the cash is the only option, and in the age of inflated prices and ridiculous wages, aiming to do that over a single summer is laughable.
Andre Villas-Boas isn’t the problem for Chelsea. He’s a young man who still has to figure out what his best starting XI is. Stability is what the club needs. Repeatedly sacking the manager won’t accomplish anything for Roman Abramovich. But someone needs to tell him that.
