The first thing Mauricio Pochettino did after losing to Everton on Sunday was ask for more transfers, even though the club has spent close to £1 billion on new players since they arrived at the club. And herein lies one of the many problems we face right now.
Are they even in sync? I have heard that in January it will be more collective and Pochettino will have more say, and that is how it should have been from day one.
It reminds me of the situation where Chelsea were literally on the verge of loaning Marc Cucurella to Manchester United, but Pochettino’s decision to start him in a League Cup match scuttled the move. And since then, Poch has chosen Cucurella more often. What does that tell you? He tells me that there has been no real cohesion.
“When the transfer window opens, we will see what we can do,” Pochettino said after the Everton defeat. “I won’t say if I ask for more players or fewer players but it is to see if the perception coincides with reality. Maybe we need to improve our reality. Is it expectation here and reality here because we are missing something in the middle? That is the reality, maybe we need to improve our reality.
“That is the reality, if we are not aggressive enough, we have to analyze and do something with the owner. [in the transfer market].”
Poch was asked more about the topic in the press: “Did you say that maybe you want more transfers in January?”
Answered:
“I think it’s about to get better. We were talking after almost four or five months, or 16 games, it remains to be assessed. Today we couldn’t with all the opportunities we had. We need to score if we want to win the game and we want to be in a different position in the table. It’s not just about playing, the team played well, they dominated the game against a very difficult team like Everton. When you evaluate Everton, we deserve all the credit because I think we were much better than them, but in the end you have to score because if not, you gain confidence in your opponent and it is impossible to go 96 minutes without making a mistake. “
Reading between the lines it seems like he wants a striker and maybe even a central midfielder.
But the broader point here, of course, is that multiple reliable outlets and journalists have reported on several occasions since Poch arrived that he wanted proven Premier League experience, and they haven’t given it to him. He certainly hasn’t been given a fully tested striker.
Of course, some might argue that what he has been given means he has been supported. After all, the club has spent £1 billion building this team, so surely it will be backed?
No, it is not. These are players that the club and the directors chose and wanted to incorporate, not necessarily players that Poch wanted. So whether this is right or wrong, unfortunately Poch cannot be said to be endorsed.
It’s clear what Poch wanted, but it’s worrying that they may not be as in sync as we’re led to believe. Maybe it’s right and maybe what we’ve been hearing for the past few months about Poch having more of a say and more power in the future will happen. But this is just one of the many reasons why I think Poch needs more time here. I have not changed my position on the matter.
Firing Poch would be papering over cracks again, and there’s a much bigger picture to all of this right now.
The much talked about under 25 rule in the summer was simply absurd, it really was. And if it’s true, then they really need to take a hard look in the mirror.
The team has been built with players who could succeed at Chelsea, but they may not. They are actors in the project. They are raw players. But most of them are not proven players, especially in the Premier League.
Just look at the effect that players like Declan Rice, James Maddison and James Ward-Prowse have had on their teams this season, and they were all available for sale this summer.
I think we’ve made some decent signings, but I honestly don’t think we’ve been smart to ignore one of the most important things needed for a successful team: experienced, proven players who know the league.
This isn’t knee-jerk or reactionary because I’ve been saying it since the summer, and it’s been even more worrying to me since then because I knew Poch wanted that too.
“It is impossible to solve it now and it will be years before Chelsea returns to what we saw before,” Frank Leboeuf said this weekend. “But as long as they hire only young players, they will have to deal with that.
“We all knew at the end of last season that we would see the same thing again. It is impossible to solve. You hire too many talented but inexperienced young players and get rid of experienced players.
“The pressure from the fans and the media (because of course Chelsea should not be in 12th place) will be enormous and will destroy everyone. People will be angry at the billions they have spent.
“You are not going to solve this problem [right now] because you got rid of what is important in general in life: experience. It does not work”.
He’s right and he’s been saying it since the summer too. I don’t really agree with the players we sold because I think many of them had to leave. Remember, there are also bad experiences and many of these players were causing problems within the group and were just looking for the exit door. So they just had to leave. But the problem was not replacing them with better experience and not signing a proven striker.
And here we are again about to enter another transfer window talking about what we still need to improve this team and perfect it, even after spending a billion pounds signing new players. That to me is just not right.
I also agree with the general consensus that we need a general director of football to oversee all operations in the football field and work closely with the coach to achieve the best of what he wants and what the team needs.
