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- [00:00]
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- [01:29]
Podcast Host
The Athletic FC Podcast Network.
- [01:35]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Welcome to the Athletic FC Podcast with me, Ayo Akinwaleere. On Friday night, Chelsea suffered a fourth defeat in eight Premier League games. Back to Minte and Minto. Squeeze it in. It's as if Jorgensen wasn't there. Having slipped from fourth to sixth. Frustrations have come to the fore, including from star player Cole Palmer. So, has Maresco Ball gone flat? Here with us today we have our senior football writer for the Athletic, Oli K, and our Chelsea correspondent, Liam Toomey as well. Right, Liam, defeat at Brighton on Friday means Chelsea have only picked up nine points from their last nine Premier League games. That's back to back defeats to Brighton. Now. Is it much deeper than that though?
- [02:28]
Podcast Host
Well, I think if you look at the form for the last two months, it is something deeper than that. Chelsea are regressing significantly from what we saw in the first couple of months of the season. When we spoke about this at the time, it did feel like more of a continuation or an evolution of the finish to the last campaign under Mauricio Pochettino than perhaps we were expecting. We were expecting maybe a bit more of a revolution of style under Enzo Maresca. Now, what we seen over the last couple of months is that style has become more recognizably maurescible, or at least the version that we saw at Leicester. But the results have declined significantly. You know, you mentioned nine points. If you look at Chelsea's form since their goalless draw at Everton, they've got two points more than Tottenham and Manchester United, who are the designated crisis clubs right now. So the trajectory is really worrying for Chelsea in the top four race. They're out of the top four now. Manchester City have far more momentum than them. Newcastle, Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest continue to defy gravity as well. So it's looking dicey to actually finish the season in the way that they expected to do. And never mind being talked up as fringe title contenders. Now they're being talked about as fringe top four contenders if things keep going the way they are.
- [03:56]
Oli K
Yeah.
- [03:56]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Ole. This is a very different conversation to the one we were having even in December, I reckon, you know, huge inconsistencies for Chelsea right now. But you look at this squad, I mean, this is also a really young squad. You got the youngest average age of a squad in the Premier League, 23 and a half years old. This is where sometimes, I guess that naivety or that lack of experience may be really showing, because, yes, when they're playing well, they're on a high, but when things aren't going that well, do they have the minerals to get over it?
- [04:28]
Oli K
Yeah, I think that the point you make is offers a certain mitigation for the coach who didn't pick these players and didn't select these players. It offers mitigation for the players themselves who are young and are learning on the job like the coaches. But this is a deliberate strategy by the club. They have decided to go in this direction with extremely young players. You can look at that late run under Pochettino late last season when things started to click. Players started to play with a spring in their step and they got their wind of the sails and other such cliches, and it all looked very good briefly and then likewise at the start of this season. But even within that run, even with that, in that run, there were games where you thought, wow, when it clicks, when these guys get their tails up and get two or three goals clear, they look really confident. You can see the confidence flowing not just through Cole Palmer, but through the whole team. And Nicholas Jackson is to me, a real confidence player. When he is on it, he looks a real player. But then it turns and I don't think Chelsea have very often in the past two or three years won matches in difficult circumstances. They've been a team that seem to be very good when they're good and when they're not on it, they just fall away. There were so many games like that under Pochettino last season. There have been so many games like that over the past few months where if the game isn't played on their terms and if they're not comfortable and if things aren't clicking, they just look like a. An immature, inexperienced group of players which, which they are. And I excuse the players for that. I would say that gives the manager a certain mitigation. But it's no excuse for the club itself that has insisted on this fairly radical, fairly extreme policy, signing such young players. So many young, inexperienced players thinking they're being really clever, telling everybody they're being really clever by doing this. And to be honest, I don't think they've been clever at all.
- [06:18]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Okay, well, on this point, Simon Johnson was down at the MX for the Athletic on Friday and speaking on our dedicated Chelsea podcast straight out of Coburn, he was left to question the character of this Chelsea squad as well.
- [06:32]
Liam Toomey
Just as worrying as the performance was, what happened at the final whistle, Players not even sort of remotely looking to go over there to Willie Caballero, the assistant first team coach, to sort of bully the players to make some kind of effort to go anywhere near. A lot of them made a very half hearted. I kind of referenced it in, in a, in a post on, on X and also in my live briefing piece that they made as much sort of an advance as they did during the game. Only Rhys James sort of broke into the penalty area and sort of got close to the. The away end and I thought that was pretty pathetic. Like if you're going to play like that and then follow it up with that kind of cowardice not to front up again. I think it, it highlights the lack of character in this squad at the moment.
- [07:23]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, Liam Simon spoke about the lack of fronting up after full time and in his analysis on the Athletic compared the defeat to the 41 loss under Graham Potter away to Brighton. I think what, October 2022, was there a fear Friday night could have been a turning point for Maresca.
- [07:42]
Podcast Host
I think with the fans there is a sense that something has shifted. I mean, it's remarkable, but we are well Three months, a little more than three months removed from Chelsea fans chanting we've got our Chelsea back as they beat Southampton. And I think that shows how far sentiment can shift in this day and age. But it also shows how much Chelsea's performances as well as their results. It's the performances, I think, that have been the most worrying thing because even in the games that they've won in this nine game stretch, they've been deeply unconvincing and they seem to have lost the conviction of the way that they were. The fast attacks that underpinned a lot of their best attacking play. That has gone to some extent, that has gone at the direction of Maresca because as you said, he's been. That was one of the weird things about early in the season. Chelsea were playing well, scoring goals, thrilling with this fast attacking football. And Maresca kept saying, slow down, slow down, we don't want to be in basketball games. That's the excuse expression that he kept using. And they're not really involved in basketball games now. They have possession, they have control until they don't, until the other team get the ball, attack them quickly. And the problem that they've got is they're not creating as much as they were, but their opponents still are. And when you add to that the fact that Chelsea haven't been as ruthless in front of goal now Nicholas Jackson has gotten a lot of the criticism for that. I mean, he's been culprit number one until he got injured. But he's certainly not the only one who hasn't been ruthless enough in the final third. Even happened to Cole Palmer to an extent. When you have that at one end and then you have opponents starting to take more of their chances, you know, in, in the first two, three months of the season, I think opponents were underperforming their XG against Chelsea by about three or four goals. That has evened out. All of that narrows the margin for error. And Chelsea are also making more errors. They're making errors in possession that lead to goals. And you just get the impression that every team that plays them now knows if we let them have the ball for long enough, eventually they'll give it to us in an area where we can do them damage. And that was very much Brighton's game plan in the second of the two games that they played against them and they won it even more convincingly than the FA cup tied. That was maybe the worst thing about it, was not just the result and the performance, but the fact that it wasn't remotely shocking.
- [10:09]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, Oli, fair to say that Mareska's got some problems he definitely has to solve. But, you know, isn't this sort of the danger of hiring a coach with such a small sample size, you never quite know what you might get. And also, Chelsea, historically are a club known to get rid of people and bring them in. The last couple of seasons have even taught us that, even though this is a new regime. But I also thinking because there have been so many changes, this kind of has to work for them.
- [10:35]
Oli K
Tokyo, as you say, it's a really small sample size in terms of his coaching career. He had that brief spell with Palmer, a season at Leicester, favorites to get promoted and nearly didn't. I've no doubt he's a really good coach. I've heard really good things about him as a coach from his time at Manchester City and so on. But in a way, it's not just a coaching job. You've got this bunch of young players who just need to be dragged in a certain direction. You need to be energized. You need to unify the whole club. Pochettino is a really good coach. Graham Potter is a really good coach. They've had good coaches over the last few years. And it's more than a coaching job. It's a job where you just have to bring the whole thing together and probably drag these players through their. Their growing pains and. And that's difficult when the coach himself is 45, which isn't young for a coach these days. But he's only been a head coach for, what is it, probably about 80 matches, definitely fewer than 100 matches. So it's a problem for him. It's a challenge for him. He's learning on the job. He's got all these other players who use that phrase, small sample size. Well, Nicholas Jackson was signed on a small sample size. Mudrik was signed on a very, very small sample size in terms of how quickly his reputation had come about in Ukraine. And you've got all these players who had just signed on the basis of one good season or a half a good season, because the sporting directors or the owners think this is brilliant. What we're doing is so inspired, it's genius, and it just isn't. They could get top five. They could get into the Champions League. I certainly expect them still in this zombie state to win the Europa Conference League, but the progress is nothing like good enough for the amount of money they spend, which is extreme unprecedented in the history of world football. Am I right in saying that? It's the biggest three year spend in world football. It's got to the point where if Chelsea win three on the run, everyone's really excited because, oh, wow, one or two of these players, not just Cole Palmer, might actually be okay. And they're talented players, but they're just. It's just the whole thing just looks so underwhelming and unimpressive to me. It's built on such sort of weak foundations, I think, Liam, I can see.
- [12:44]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Raul fans just licking their lips, clasping their hands at the fact that the wills might be looking like they're falling off again for Chelsea, considering the amount of money they've spent. But Ole makes a really interesting point. Is that a fair point to say that actually from the coach to the team, there's a small sample size there of experience in general?
- [13:05]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I think that's very fair. You can look at every part of the club. The sporting directors were never sporting directors anywhere else before they were hired. They were recruiters at clubs that were known for being smart recruiters, but they weren't the most senior figures in those operations. You've got the ownership which remains divided between Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, but if you're talking about the part of the ownership that's actually running the club, Clearlake Capital, Bedad Igbaly, Jose Feliciano, they don't have a background in football, in running football clubs. This is their first go at this as well. So there's not really much of a track record to hang your hat on for anyone really at Chelsea. And I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes in for fans is they see, they see the inexperience in the squad, and that's one thing, and that's frustrating enough when the team is struggling and they see the inexperience of the coach. But then the people that are then making the decisions are also, by definition, inexperienced because they haven't been doing this for very long, certainly not at this level, with this level of scrutiny and pressure and stakes. So there isn't a lot to trust in. Rather you're asking a lot to just say, trust us, we'll get this right. Because what do you have to point to to say that we did this before, trust us this time. That isn't the situation that Chelsea are in. When Roman Abramovich made decisions that fans agree, disagreed with. And there were plenty, ultimately him and the people that he had running the club could point to all the trophies, the winning teams they'd built before. So you might not agree with us this time, but trust us, we'll get it right. We get it right. More often than not, there isn't that sense of confidence and earned goodwill with this ownership and leadership of Chelsea. And at the same time, there's a, there's a real sense of assurance from the people at the top of Chelsea that, an utter conviction in what they're doing that shines through with every conversation you have. And so I think a lot of fans are finding that quite jarring. They've essentially made a lot of, a lot of bets. They made a lot of bets on potential with players. They made a massive bet on Maresca and his potential as a coach based on, as you say, a pretty small sample size. And it's natural that some of these bets are going to come off and some of them aren't. And then you just have to figure out from that whether the bets that you win outweigh the bets that you lose and translate into actual success on the pitch. And so far, I think Chelsea would argue that it's still trending in the right direction positively, but it's not trending positively enough for a lot of people that are watching this team and it's not trending positively fast enough for a lot of people that are watching this team. Again, based on the amount of money that's been sunk into it, I think that's, that's a critical factor here because the, the investment conditions the expectations and completely conditions the nature of the conversation that we have around Chelsea.
- [16:09]
Ryan Reynolds
You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast with IO Akimolere Ryan Reynolds here from.
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Podcast Host
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- [17:14]
Noah Chestnut
Hey, it's Noah Chestnut from the Athletic. If you're into games and sports, pay attention. I'm going to give you four sports terms. You tell me the common thread. Ready? Axl Loop Lutz Sow Cow. That's Axl Loop Lutz Salchow. This one's like medium hard. The answer is figure skating jumps. Now, what if I gave you 16 different terms and you figure out how they come together into four different groups? If you're up for the challenge, you'll want to check out Sports Edition. It's a new daily game for sports fans. There'll be some that are going to stump you, some that make you laugh, and some that remind you when you were a kid watching sports for the first time. Connection Sports Edition to play today's puzzle, go to theathletic.com connections.
- [18:11]
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Football is a team. It's not tennis. You know, it's not only Cole Palmer frustrated. We are all in the same. All in the same. We are all the same in this moment.
- [18:20]
Ayo Akinwaleere
That was Enzo Maresca speaking post match on Friday about the collective responsibility at Chelsea after a frustrating night for Cole Palmer. Liam, you know how much of a concern is this form or more the impact him not scoring has on Chelsea's overall attacking output?
- [18:38]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I wrote about this quite recently for the Athletic about how Palmer's baseline goal and assist numbers have gone down a bit since the October international break. I think it was eight goals in 17 Premier League games leading up to the Brighton loss and just the one assist. He'd created 32 chances before that Brighton game without an assist. And that tells you something, which is that he's still creating and that his teammates are not finishing off those chances. But his his scoring's also also dipped a little bit. And he's certainly not the problem. He's certainly not the problem at Chelsea. That much is clear from just watching them. But from any kind of statistical analysis you do of his performances, he's not dropped off very much, if at all, really. He's still the player that opponents most fear, the player that opponents gear their entire strategies towards taking out or limiting. But that in, in a sense is the problem that Chelsea are dealing with because Cole Palmer is not a surprise to anyone anymore. Everyone knows he's one of the best players in the league and they treat him accordingly. And it's up to Maresca as a coach. It's also up to Palmer's teammates to find ways to Leverage the interest that he commands from opposing defenses and exploit that because there will be spaces elsewhere. But Chelsea haven't been able to do that. They get very little from the wings at the moment. They invested significantly in two wingers in the summer in Pedro Neto and Jadon Sancho, who have been pretty underwhelming, it has to be said, in terms of what they've been able to contribute. Carry very little goal threat, but aren't creating all that much either. Noni Madueike is more consistently aggressive, but he's injured now. And you really felt that in the first half against Brighton that Chelsea had quite a bright opening 20 minutes and then as soon as he went off and Sancho came on, felt like a lot of the force of their attacking play left. And then on top of all of that, you have Nicholas Jackson injured now. And that completely changes what Chelsea are able to do in the final third, because for all that, his erratic finishing is the primary discussion point whenever. Whenever his name is brought up. He does so many other things to enable Cole Palmer and the other Chelsea attackers to do their best work. The way that he stretches games, his constant intelligent movement, the way he leads the press. Maresca's spoken a little bit about this. His quote was, sometimes you have to play without a player to realise how important they are. And in the two games against Brighton, we've seen that Chelsea have virtually no penalty area presence without him. The question that a lot of fans are asking is why do they not have another striker? Why do they not have anyone else in the squad who is capable of doing that?
- [21:31]
Ayo Akinwaleere
As Joao Felix not just gone to Milan did. I just imagine they get rid of an attacking player again, you know.
- [21:36]
Podcast Host
Yeah, so that's one question. You know that that's a. That's a significant summer signing who's been loaned out after six months. But equally, Xiao Felix isn't a true number nine. He would be another kind of false nine option, a bit like Nkunku, which is not really what Chelsea need right now alongside Cole Palmer. They need a runner. They need someone who can actually occupy those spaces. And they went into the season with Jackson's primary backup being Marc Guillaume, a guy who played a handful of professional games for Barcelona and was 18 years old. It seemed unreasonable to expect him to provide legitimate, high quality Premier League cover from day one or even in his first season. I think we've seen in the Conference League minutes that he's had that he's not there yet. He might be someday. There are things to like about his Game, but he's not there yet. So this is where the criticism of Chelsea squad construction comes in. They've amassed this massive portfolio, we've used that word before, of players, of talented young players under Clearlake Capital, some of which are at Strasbourg or on loan elsewhere, some of which haven't even joined yet. But some of the moves feel more in service of the portfolio than the football team right now in terms of how this season has been prepared for and managed. And they've managed to leave themselves short in some key areas. One of them is up front, one of them is in midfield, where Moises Caicedo has to play every minute of every game because they don't have anyone else. And you also look in defense, where Trevor Chalaba had to be recalled and Wesley Fafana's injuries had a massive impact. They don't have another centre back who can do what he does. So just all over the pitch there are still question marks, but in attack, Palmer's still Palmer, but virtually nothing else is working for Chelsea.
- [23:24]
Oli K
It's not great, is it? It's not great when you're saying, yeah, they've got problems in attack and obviously midfield isn't right and, you know, fewer frailties in defense and.
- [23:34]
Podcast Host
And the goalkeeper.
- [23:35]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Oh, we haven't even got to that yet. Liam, which one's the number one?
- [23:39]
Oli K
Yeah, they bought so many goalkeepers, young goalkeepers, and I don't think they know who they want their goalkeepers to be next week. And it's, it's a real problem. And, and as, as Liam was saying, I mean, Mark Guillo is a really good, promising young player, but I don't think Chelsea can be talking about some hard luck story with Jackson getting injured and Guillaume getting injured at the same time, because they've given him, I think, 73 minutes in the Premier League this season. I think he's been. There've been nine games where he's been on the bench throughout in the Premier League, just unused substitute, which includes games where they've needed a goal, been drawing games, been losing games and needed a goal and not turned to him. So I don't think Chelsea can be saying, look, we built our squad in a very sensible way. We had everything, you know, all our contingency plans. We've just been unlucky. They haven't been unlucky. You could look at Arsenal's misfortune with, with attacking injuries and say, yeah, that's, that's quite unlucky. But still, maybe, should you have done more to mit against it But Chelsea certainly should. Their problems are self inflicted. Their problems come from a totally flawed transfer strategy, recruitment strategy. As Liam says, it seems to be more about the portfolio than the team.
- [24:52]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Liam, you know, I just. Back to what you're talking about. Jackson. I was, you know, watching the Brighton game. Cole Palmer looked like he was having a go at someone on the pitch. I think he, he shot the ball wide and then Swan must have had a word with him. Do you think that's why he's looking for a strategy? Do you think that's why he's maybe having a go or having big discussions with people on the team? Because he himself doesn't feel like he can play his football without Jackson there as an aid? And is Jackson actually really that important?
- [25:19]
Podcast Host
It's always hard and I'm always wary about trying to get into a footballer's head. And Cole Palmer doesn't say, doesn't let that much slip in terms of what he says. So in terms of why he's frustrated, I'm not sure. He clearly is. You can see it in his body language. There have been a couple of occasions in recent games. There was an occasion in that most recent Brighton game where he's taken a shot when a pass was objectively the better option. And I think that's where one of those little arguments came from. He had a bit of a back and forth with Enzo Fernandez and I think Pedro Neto too, because Chelsea got the ball to the edge of the box and they were kind of one pass away from having a really good chance. They had a decent chance and Palmer took the decent chance rather than. And you don't know why he did that, whether he, you know, whether he just backed himself or is that a reflection of a lack of trust in teammates, who knows? But in terms of Jackson, he's crucially important because of the things that he does, but also because he's not replaceable in this squad. The other aspect of it, as far as Palmer goes, is that he and Palmer have a really good chemistry between the two of them. They've built up a really good understanding over that Pochettino season of where the other one's going to be, what kind of runs they make. Jackson knows exactly where to lay the ball off for Palmer to run onto. Palmer knows exactly when to try and spring Jackson in terms of goals they've created for each other. In the Premier League, they are well on pace to surpass Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard quite soon, which would be a notable milestone. It'd be in the next season or two, you know, if they keep playing together. So they are a really good partnership and they make each other better. But yeah, there are lots of reasons for Palmer to be frustrated. The big thing for Chelsea is that he just doesn't look like he's enjoying his football in the way that he was earlier in the season and was for much of last season. And when Palmer's enjoying his football, that's when he's at his most dangerous. And when he's not enjoying his football, then you're probably not going to get the very best version of him.
- [27:19]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Liam makes a good point there. Ollie doesn't look like he's enjoying his football. This is a player that signed a bumper contract, nine year contract which would take him to 20, 33. Real talk though, I mean, could, could Palmer outgrow Chelsea if they're not getting Champions League football, for instance?
- [27:36]
Oli K
Yeah, of course there is because you look at a nine year contract, a ten year contract, whatever it might be, it's still subject to the normal conditions of a contract. Players get sold all the time when, when their ambitions aren't being satisfied or whether they want to move to a bigger club stroke, better team. Palmer's 22, he's 23 at the end of the season. I can't imagine that he wants to be playing in the Europa League and Conference League next season or beyond. And look, there's a good chance that Chelsea still get into the Champions League, that, you know, it's probably going to be top five next season. But if he's spending his Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights watching Champions League on the tv, preparing for a Conference League or Europa League game on, on the Thursday night, that's not why Cole Palmer wants to be in his career. So yeah, of course he will want to be in the Champions League and it doesn't necessarily have to be next season, but I don't think he will want many more seasons like this season where he's basically got European weeks off in the first half of the season because the competition is considered so insignificant that Chelsea are playing the reserve team in the Conference League. That is not where they want to be next season. They don't want to be in the Europa League either. They want to be in the Champions League and I'm sure there's a real drive to be in the Champions League. But for players like Cole Palmer, well, Cole Palmer in particular, but you know, maybe Caicedo, whoever else too, they want to be in the Champions League and it will be unacceptable for a club that has spent so much money not to be in the Champions League. There would be financial challenges associated with that in terms of income and so on, but it's probably less sustainable from a. From a player point of view. If you're Cole Palmer, you want to be in the Champions League.
- [29:22]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Okay, well, next we'll assess whether or not Chelsea are actually getting better under Enzo Maresca.
- [29:31]
Podcast Host
Foreign.
- [29:35]
Ryan Reynolds
This is the Athletic FC podcast with IO Acemolara.
- [29:41]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Well, Liam, how well have Chelsea adapted to what Maresca wants? I mean, if you look at some of the stats From Friday, Chelsea 69.5% possession, but lost the XG count, had fewer shots and had no shots on target. Now you work with Tom Harris on an analysis of Maresca's controlled style of play ahead of Friday night's game. And is there an argument to say that actually this team performs better under chaos than actually to try and control a match?
- [30:11]
Podcast Host
I think it's a nuanced one because in attack, there's certainly reason to think that some of Chelsea's attackers do their best work in transition. Cole Palmer finds passes in those chaotic moments when opponents aren't set better than just about anyone else. Nicholas Jackson, when there's space to run in behind, is really, really hard to deal with. You've got Nonny Madueke, who loves to run at backpedaling defenders. And Pedro Neto showed at Wolves, probably more than he has done at Chelsea so far, that he can be a super, super dangerous transition player. You think about the goal they scored against Newcastle at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season, the sublime pass that Cole Palmer played to Neto to Jackson, I think that was like seven seconds from one end of the pitch to the other. That is not Enzo Maresca's vision for Chelsea and how they should play. In fact, he said after that game, that was his first mention, I think, of we don't want to get into a basketball game. But there is definitely an argument that that weaponizes Chelsea's attackers to the fullest extent. But it's also true, and I think we have to acknowledge, that Chelsea were historically bad defensively under Mauricio Pochettino last year in terms of their defensive record and the constant chaos. The kind of unstructured nature of the team was a big part of that. They made so many mistakes, they were so disorganized when they were trying to defend against teams that were counterattacking them, that it was really, really ugly. And the defence has improved this year under Maresca, there has been a significant improvement, but it's not improved enough in terms of their average XG this season. They basically expect to give up 1.4 goals a game, which is about mid table in the Premier League. It's actually very close to Manchester City, which would normally be a badge of honor, but not this season. So they're, they're not historically bad defensively by, by Chelsea's modern standards, but they're still not good enough at that end to be anything other than clinical in attack. And so what we've seen in the last couple of months is they, their ruthlessness has deserted them, but their defense hasn't improved and therefore your margin for error shrinks to almost nothing. And so you're getting quite a few draws and losses that just look really bad and undermine the whole tenor of Maresca's, the momentum that Maresca had seen to build up.
- [32:43]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah, Oli, that comparison to City's interest and obviously Maresca being a disciple of Guardiola, but also Guardiola a coach who loves to control matches. But then you look at the personnel difference and the, the experience difference from Manchester City to Chelsea, it's, it's vastly different. And you've got a bunch of young kids who are still trying to figure out how they're trying to play and find their strengths in the game. And then you've got a City team obviously that, you know, maybe not this season, but historically have got some of the smartest, brightest, most experienced players. I mean, can we expect that from Chelsea control at this stage in their progression?
- [33:18]
Oli K
I think it's difficult. One area where I sympathise with Mareska is just if you really are trying to introduce a totally new way of playing, I don't think that the schedule really is conducive to that where you're playing every midweek and it's been Thursday nights in the Conference League and very little recovery time before Premier League games. It's not very easy to introduce this whole new style. But I agree with Liam. Chelsea's best this season has been when they've been playing quickly counterattacks, transition based football. That is what they've been good at and it's what Cole Palmer and Nicholas Jackson, that is what they're good at. And that's where they've looked very good in certain matches. And it's often been when the opposition has been coming onto them and they've been able to. They've been one or two goals ahead and then they've been able to run riot like they did at Southampton, like they did at Wolves. That's what They've been good at. So to be going in a completely different direction. One thing that came to mind when Liam was talking earlier about Maresco and how he's saying, yeah, that isn't particularly the way I want to play, it's a young coach wanting to, to play a much slower, more controlled way. And it took me back to, I mean, it's over 10 years. But Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool, he arrived there as this sort of disciple of slow, patient, possession based football and was, was very evangelical about it, about the way he played at Swansea. And he didn't want chaos, he didn't want quick football, he wanted to pass teams to death. And then he suddenly realized, I've got Suarez, I've got a very young Sterling, I've got Coutinho Sturridge. And he flipped. He moved away from his beliefs in some ways and embraced the strengths of the squad. And to me, the strengths of this young squad are quite similar where you've got players who are so good on that side of the game. But Maresca seems to be, I don't know, diluting those strengths maybe. And maybe it's a step back to take three steps forward and maybe we'll all be looking at this in a year's time and saying, wow, you know, he was right to dismantle it and rebuild along his lines. But at the moment it does look, as Liam said, it does look like they are neutralizing their strengths a bit and concentrating on things that as a young, thrown together squad, they're not terribly good at.
- [35:34]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Yeah. When you look at the comments Liam in, in the articles and even, even social media, this is one of the biggest gripes with the fan base, isn't it? It's the style of football that, that Chelsea are playing. I mean, how, how long can they hold out, right? I mean, when, when things aren't going well, you know, when the fans are at their loudest. But also, you know, from, from a club standpoint, what, what is the expectation from Oreska this season? Is it champ or does he still have a bit more leeway to really instill his style of playing onto this team?
- [36:06]
Podcast Host
Well, first of all, in terms of what the club expect from Mareska, this was always seen as kind of like a double season because of the club World Cup. They were going to review the two years as one continuous whole. I don't get the sense of any great appetite to bring that forward. They have full faith in Maresca in terms of this system. They are all the way in when it comes to this style of football. This is a much bigger bet than they made even on Graham Potter, which wasn't this, it wasn't these sporting directors that hired Graham Potter, it was the ownership directly. But hiring Maresca is more of a philosophical thing for the club about the way they want to go about football at every level. They're trying to implement a similar style of football throughout the academy. They're trying to do it at Strasbourg with Liam Rosinia. So this is a blue co wide emphasis which leaves you wondering, you know, if, if results at some point dictate that Maresca isn't working, what happens then? Because that, you know, they, this is a lot more than just a simple coach hire and a five year contract, which would be hard enough to, to row back on. They already did that once. But the, the investment goes further than that in terms of what, what they're looking at as the, the future of, of Chelsea and the way they want, want it to grow. But there's, there's also a fundamental tension here with the supporters because a lot of the Chelsea supporters I know and a lot of the ones that go to games have never liked this style of football. You know, Chelsea in this century defined themselves in opposition to Guardiola, to beating Guardiola teams, to being pace and power and playing without the ball when you have to and making the most of your chances and not this kind of religious devotion to possession and control. And coaches that have tried to bring that to Chelsea in the past have not fared well. I remember the toxicity around Maurizio Sarri because Abramovic tried this. You know, he had a Guardiola fascination himself. And as well as trying to get Guardiola to coach Chelsea, he hired coaches that he thought could do the same thing at Stamford Bridge. And Sarri was really not embraced at all at Chelsea, despite on the surface having quite a successful season in charge of the club, because the football just did not resonate with the crowd at all. Graham Potter, that was one of many reasons why it didn't resonate at Stamford Bridge. And he never, he never got the crowd behind him. The style of football was just not, not to the fans liking. The interesting exception in all of this is Thomas Tuchel, because Chelsea under him were even slower and more patient and at times more mechanical in possession than they are now. But he won the Champions League so he could do whatever he wanted. You know that he kind of had goodwill forever because of that triumph. But in, in the main, Chelsea fans have not, or at least the ones that go to Matches the most have not warmed to this style of football. And that is something that Chelsea and Maresca are going to have to confront as well. But at the end of the day it's. I think I've always been of the view it matters less what you do than how well you do it. If they win consistently with this style, eventually fans will get behind it, but if they're not winning, the style will become a stick with which to beat them.
- [39:42]
Oli K
I feel that it's not just the question of style. I think for the first time in the modern era you're seeing Chelsea as a team which is focusing on long term development, which you could say is good in one sense. But Chelsea's past 22 years have been about short term. It's been about hitting those immediate targets. It's win today, win tomorrow, not worry about what's too far down the road. Now there are flaws in that approach. So I think probably a lot of us criticized Abramovich at times for being too knee jerk, too short termist, not focused enough on long term development. But I think there's a, I think there's a compromise. I don't think Chelsea getting the balance right. It's also a lot to ask fans of a club who have been used to being competitive all the time to suddenly get behind a project which is about, I don't know, it feels like, it feels like, you know, they haven't really been competitive for three years and it feels like they're also not going to be competitive outside of the Europa Conference League or whatever in the near future. Just challenging for top four, top five is just not enough for Chelsea. And it might be enough given the restraint and the restrictions of the squad, the limits of the squad that we've talked about. But as a club they should be secondary sites an awful lot higher. The long term development is important. It's important to have a long term strategy, but I'm just not sure it's, I'm not convinced that it's a, a long term strategy, which is, which is going to work short term, medium or long term. I, I think it's so flawed what, what they're doing.
- [41:23]
Ayo Akinwaleere
Okay, well, let's leave it there. Gent. Ollie, Liam, thank you so much for your time. And also before I go, I want to tell you at Sports Edition, a new game for sports fans from the Athletic. It's basically a daily dose of trivia. It's so satisfying to solve and quite addictive as well. Actually play now@theathletic.com connections we'll be back tomorrow.
- [41:45]
Ryan Reynolds
You've been listening to the Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavroot and Jay Beal. The executive producer was Aidy Moorhead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, search for the Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. The Athletic FC Podcast is an athletic media company production.
- [42:06]
Allstate Advertiser
The Athletic FC Podcast Network.