As Frank Lampard stood forlorn on the Bernabeu touchline, the realisation might have set in that the nostalgia of his return to supporters will do little to rectify a nightmarish season that was very likely condemned to even more misery thanks to a 2-0 humbling by Real Madrid.
The 2-0 result and a red card to Ben Chilwell felt like mercy for a Blues side who looked 12 years, not 12 months removed from the near perfection of the second leg against Los Blancos under Thomas Tuchel in 2022.
Since that tie, the club has not only seen a change in ownership, but it has also seen three head coaches oversee one campaign. Even without going into the minute details, the mess that has unravelled since cannot be that stunning.
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But to anyone who has covered Chelsea, this mess is not completely new, only amplified this term due to a series of mistakes. The collateral damage of a muddled squad, failed signings and rampant change in the dugout was a hallmark of the Roman Abramovich years along with the silverware.
The yearning for consistent change in pursuit of success once looked like a smart approach in the face of stability that English football had long claimed as a value. And for a time, it did exactly that. With Chelsea having some amazing players and few rivals able to financially compete, Chelsea looked ahead of the curve.
That is no longer the case. The dogmatic demand for short-termism in pursuit of “results” needs to be put to rest now because the evidence just proves it creates more problems than solutions.
On the day Chelsea were beaten by Real Madrid, Watford felt compelled to release a statement confirming that their current head coach Chris Wilder will remain in post until the end of this season. For those not keeping track: that accounts for the grand total of five games. Around the time of that statement’s release, The Athletic were reporting that the club had held talks with Francesco Farioli.
Watford was another club heralded by some for their fire-and-hire approach, citing their stay in the Premier League between 2015 and 2020. But the Hornets have truly gone beyond parody with their gimmick, having six coaches since the start of last season.
They made the bold choice to appoint a younger name in Rob Edwards, who had done brilliant work with Forest Green Rovers to get them promoted from League Two, only to dismiss him after only 10 league games. Slaven Bilic came in and he was sacked last month for Wilder, who is likely to be sacked for someone else, who will likely (you guessed it) be shortly sacked for someone else.
This has led to Watford completely failing to plot a return to the top tier, currently sitting in 12th with the ironic twist being that Edwards, who they deemed not good enough, moved to rivals Luton and is sat in third place, likely to take them to the play-offs and only five points off an automatic promotion spot.
The lack of any credibility in that position is something even the most blinkered of observers cannot argue, even if you do come at it from a more modern stance that the head coach is just a coach and nothing more within a structure, the complete elimination of stability is not innovation, it’s just stupidity.
In north London, Spurs and Arsenal have seen different fortunes for two different approaches. One got lured into the prospect of “results-first” big-name talents who were certain to transform the mentality, whilst the other stood in the face of the scrutiny of even their own supporters to back an inexperienced coach.
One is on the brink of a title triumph, the other is lost in the wilderness having sacked their fourth coach since 2019.
The era of coaches lasting decades is probably gone, and the idea that a coach cannot serve great value within three to four years is obviously simplistic. For all the criticism of Brendan Rodgers at Leicester, the work he has put in since arriving in early 2019 has been significant. Taking the club to the brink of Champions League qualification twice, an FA Cup win and a European semi-final.
Even if Mikel Arteta does not last beyond 2024 at Arsenal, his reign since the end of 2019 is a large chunk of time, a period in which he has been able to enact great change.
What the constant flux of coaching personalities usually tells us about a club is the lack of a coherent strategy above it.
Even if Watford may make their approach transparent and unashamed, it is hard to see how it is creating a productive environment, given two relegations since 2020 and a churn of 10 managers since 2018.
Players at Watford will smell that lack of authority and either feel such upheaval is not helpful to their development, or that a spell under someone they do not like will not be that harmful because their odds of outlasting them are pretty high.
Todd Boehly walks into this summer at Stamford Bridge with something he did not 12 months ago, a smart and experienced group of sporting directors who he should listen to over the next coaching appointment. Not someone who is going to be a guaranteed stay for decades, but someone who at the very least fits into whatever the plan is moving forward.
Having three coaches a season is not radical thinking, it will just create further failure and steps into absurdity.
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