February 26th seems a long time ago and yet it’s just under a month since Roman Abramovich announced that he was to step back from running Chelsea FC, suggesting that control should be handed over to the Chelsea Foundation.
The entire Chelsea world has been tipped upside down since then, with the Chelsea Foundation idea backfiring and the Government ultimately sanctioning Abramovich and by association Chelsea, leading to the premature selling of the club. I have lost count of the number of the times I’ve seen headlines loudly exclaiming “Crisis Club Chelsea!” since I’ve been watching the side. At times it seems like a weekly occurrence.
But this time it is very different. The fact that no money can go to the club for fear of slipping in to Abramovich’s hands, meaning a pared down travel budget, staff being laid off and no tickets for a significant portion of the club’s supporters, tells you that Chelsea are indeed a club in crisis. The threat of going into administration if a buyer cannot be found, tells you that this crisis is not just paper talk, it is existential.
READ MORE: Thomas Tuchel sent reminder that he already has the perfect Jorginho successor in Chelsea squad
I’ve seen Chelsea in lesser crises, usually either of their own making or invented by the media, many times. It has to be said that Chelsea is a club that often thrives in such circumstances.
The most famous occasion is perhaps the Champions’ League triumph in 2012 coming off the back of the Andre Villas Boas’ great project being scuppered, only to win the ‘holy grail’ a couple of months later. Chelsea did it again last season having fired the much-loved Frank Lampard. Five months later Thomas Tuchel delivered a highly unlikely second Champions’ League trophy.
Only the season before, Lampard had been hired, possibly because no one else would take the job as Chelsea faced a transfer embargo. Did it harm the team’s progress? Not at all, as Lampard introduced several players whose skills were honed in the academy, and finished a respectable fourth and reached an FA Cup final.
I could give you plenty more examples, such as Chelsea reaching their first Champions’ League final in 2008 with interim manager Avram Grant at the helm, but I think you get the point. Chelsea thrives in a crisis and when faced with adversity we often see the team at its best. This has certainly been true since the Abramovich news broke and arguably before that.
Since the beginning of December, Chelsea has faced one of the most arduous fixture schedules imaginable. This was hugely impacted further by key injuries to the most important players in Tuchel’s 3-4-3 system – Ben Chilwell and Reece James and even further with players being absent with Covid or picking up fatigue related injuries.
We may have moaned about the results at the time and in truth, the last-minute defeat to West Ham and draws against Everton, Wolves, Brighton (twice) and Liverpool almost certainly derailed any hopes Chelsea had in winning the Premier League, but the team refused to lay down and die.
Since losing (unluckily) to West Ham on December 4th, Chelsea have only lost to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium by a superb Kevin de Bruyne goal in a match where they held their own against the Champions elect. The day after the shock news about Abramovich stepping back from the club, Chelsea faced Liverpool in the Carabao Cup Final. Surely, they would be affected by such destabilising news.
Not one bit. They put in arguably one of the best performances of the season and should consider themselves very unlucky not to have won the match. Lukaku’s potentially match winning goal being ruled out questionably by VAR and then losing in a penalty shoot out which went down to the respective ‘keepers.
Chelsea haven’t lost a match in 120 minutes, since the Man City defeat on 15th January and have now put together twelve consecutive wins. They’ve reached the semi-final of the FA Cup and the quarter-final of the Champions’ League in this spell and have hopefully cemented their position in the Premier League, currently third, 5 points above Arsenal in fourth place.
And all of this against a backdrop of the greatest turmoil involving the club that I have seen since the 1980’s. Normal service appears to have been resumed. Much of the credit for this must go to Tuchel. He has been nothing short of incredible over the last month.
Tuchel has shown great wisdom, self-awareness and maturity during this period. A period where he has been alone as the ‘spokesman’ for the club and a lightning rod for all the questions, criticism and opprobrium from the media who have, in the main, focussed on the politics of the sale of the club due to Abramovich being sanctioned.
This is certainly not in his job description and yet, as always, he has been honest, patient, intelligent and humble when answering questions that no Coach should ever have to answer.
Tuchel has always claimed that he likes to run the team like a family and that approach seems to be bearing fruit. Tuchel and the team appear to be sticking together in adversity in an 'us against them' approach without the petulance and belligerence usually associated with such a stance.
His leadership has been clear, visible and highly effective. No wonder Joe Cole claimed he should become Prime Minister in his recent post-match analysis for BT Sport, a comment picked up by Chelsea supporters resulting in a banner at the Middlesbrough match proclaiming “Tuchel for PM”. Well, he’s certainly proven his leadership credentials better than many who aspire to that lofty position.
With his customary humility, Tuchel preferred to give the credit for Chelsea’s indomitable spirit and performances to the players, praising their in-built ‘winning mentality’ in the process:
“This is what I demand from myself, my team, to prepare for it in the best way possible and to get the head straight and to be out there in the same competitive attitude like we have played the last 13 matches. At the highest level you can never relax if you want to keep the momentum going.”
“This club shapes the mentality and attitude of the players. I found a group of players who have a very impressive approach to training, to performance, to games, to the understanding of how the team works. This is for me what the club is doing here to sharpen their attitude, to keep the heads straight, what it is about to play for Chelsea.”
He has also said that the winning mentality he found at the club on his arrival is what impressed him the most. It seemed to be wired into the players’ consciousness, especially those who had grown up with it or who had played for the club for a number of years.
Chris Wilder also alluded to it after Middlesbrough’s defeat in the FA Cup Quarter-final: "Chelsea just find a way. It is the mentality of the group led by an incredible manager”
"Their skipper (Cesar Azpilicueta), Thiago (Silva) and (Antonio) Rudiger just want to win and that's why they win things and are champions."
Many, including myself, have long mused over what Chelsea’s identity as a football team really is. Perhaps it’s been staring us in the face all along. A winning mentality is now in Chelsea’s DNA. However, supporters that pre-date Roman Abramovich’s arrival would argue that Chelsea’s identity in the previous 98 years had been very different.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s they were the subject of Music Hall jokes for their lack of silverware for a ‘big’ club. In the 1960’s the ‘Kings of the Kings Road’ side were known for being flashy and showbiz. Throughout all of this time Chelsea had a penchant for unexpectedly beating the best teams in the land and then equally unexpectedly losing to the worst. For the 6 years before the arrival of Abramovich they became a ‘good cup side’ that would fall at the last hurdle when trying to win the league.
Abramovich, through his significant financial investment in the playing side, the academy and hiring some of the best coaches and players in the world, may well have changed Chelsea’s identity for ever. Perhaps his legacy will be to leave Chelsea with an identity of winners.
And maybe, just maybe, it is also an ability to shut out the noise and focus on the job in hand, winning football matches, no matter what chaos is going on all around them.
Given Chelsea’s track record of thriving in chaos, who would bet against them to win the FA Cup and even the Champions’ League this season. After all, both the team and the coach are born winners and stranger things have happened.
