Chelsea are second, but are they good enough
Chelsea are on the move in the table. A win against Burnley puts them just behind Arsenal, just three points off the top, with the Gunners slotted to play the North London Derby on Sunday. While the table makes them look the second best this weekend, with the Sunday games still to come, the Blues do not seem impressive by any stretch of imagination.
The Turf Moor encounter, if nothing else, is a sign that the Premier League may not be a great watch. There is a lot of running and huffing and puffing, but all of it is far too boring to watch. While the set pieces, long balls and the Pulis-Delap-Stoke type long throws are back to add an element of surprise, the open-play game is a grind to watch. Burnley can be excused for playing cautiously and within their limits, but watching an elite club like Chelsea play the way they do these days is a real drag.
My gripe is that the Blues have a reputation to uphold, and they don’t live up to it. With all due respect to Maresca, this team lacks any identity.
Liverpool fly off the blocks and drive themselves relentlessly at the opposition, and that is their trademark. City will run circles around the other teams. Shifting shapes, short passes, and a hunger for goals make them what Pep wanted them to be. Arsenal, over the past few years, have been stingy at the back, solid in the midfield, and have a plan to play to. City and Liverpool might be struggling at this moment , and Arsenal striding along. but still they all still retain their hallmark style. The have a style that encapsulates what they stand for in terms of football output.
However, Chelsea have been just all over the place for some years now. They bought players like there was no tomorrow. At one point, the joke was that they had hardly any room for all the players they had signed. Then they sold some randomly and then bought again. Since 2018, Stamford Bridge has seen 4 managers. Sarri had a disappointing year, Lampard came and went without a trace, Tuchel lost his job due to a change in management, and finally, Graham Potter and his professor-like approach lasted only a few months.
Maresca, who began his new role in July 2024, was Chelsea’s sixth managerial appointment in five years and the fourth since American investor Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital bought the club in May 2022. Having come off from the project of getting Leicester into the Premier League, it was never going to be easy.
The last two years have been tough and while they haven’t fallen off, Chelsea have certainly lost their identity. The Chelsea of the past is no longer visible anywhere. The days of Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte seem so far away these days.
Mourinho returned to Chelsea and led a team with the likes of Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas to the title. They were stingy at the back, fluid in the centre and flashy in the opponents’ box. The very next year the dour Antonio Conte employed the 3-4-2-1 system to perfection, securing the Blues the title. David Luis playing the libero or free defender in the system was a rarity for EPL and a tactical masterpiece. Luiz would sweep up from behind and bring the ball forward. Without the ball, Chelsea would revert to 5 in the back. Nuanced, practical and flexible, Conte’s tactics were the mainstay of the Chelsea campaign in 2016-17.
What really is this Chelsea team
Cut to the Chelsea of the last few years, and one feels the difference. They are now a concoction of confusion and iffy. At times it seems like some of the bits and pieces of many managers in the last decade have been left in the system. A Chelsea game is these days good to watch but challenging to enjoy.
While normal teams tend to be unpredictable over the course of several matches, Chelsea, these days, are capable of being stunningly unpredictable over windows of 10 minutes too. In a single 90-minute match, they manage to be brilliant for 10 minutes, chaotic for the next ten, and outright atrocious at the flick of a switch.
It is just maddening to watch. At times, furious passes are pinged in closed spaces in the midfield, as just when the opposition is in a daze, the ball is lost. While it is tactical to have a fluid shape to keep the opposition confused, Chelsea’s shape change confuses its own players.
Cucrella is a beehive of activity, a fizz, but too error-prone. Caicedo keeps the midfield ticking, and Palmer and Joao Pedro are always a handful to any defence. All seems good in pieces and in small periods of time, but every time one watches them for the whole 90, one is left with a spinning head. It’s complete madness and there seemingly is no method to the madness. Great goals are scored, and easy chances are missed. Stunning defensive clearances are routine, while silly errors are galore. While the pundits might classify these under fancy terms like vertical positional play, inverted fullbacks, and wing overload, the unpredictability is just too maddening.
Chelsea is now second in the table, and like everything that they do these days, there is nothing you can dare to bet on. By the end of the season, they may win the League or languish in mid-table.
Whatever they do, they are for me too feverish to watch on a weekend.
