Script for everything Chelsea Right Now, my longest podcast script to date, and a new series that I will be starting, with each chapter being a separate video to come out soon!
Everything Chelsea right now 17.11.22
Hello and welcome to the Chelsea News Podcast with me your host, Jack; in today’s episode we will be talking about everything to do with Chelsea right now and summarising everything to do with the club and presenting it to you. This is going to be a somewhat different format of video to what I usually produce. Today’s episode will be divided in to sections or chapters and in each chapter I will highlight something important about Chelsea under potter as well as some differences from previously under Tuchel, and really just talk about everything to do with Chelsea Football Club right now. Each individual chapter will be divided up and posted separately onto the YouTube channel as well as a longer form piece of content with all of the videos put up into one. I’m your host Jack and this is the Chelsea News Podcast. Sit back and enjoy.
First Chapter: Thomas Tuchel’s sacking
First of all, lets have a look at where Chelsea were before Tuchel had come into the club. Deep into the season they sat in 9th place under Lampard and looked to be out of the Champions League in their tie against Atletico Madrid. Cue Thomas Tuchel taking the reigns. He had an almost instant effect on the team and took them all the way to 4th in the Premier League and to a Champions League title in his first year at the club, which earnt him a contract extension under then owner Roman Abramovic.
He was a success on the pitch in terms of results and in terms of the rapport he built with the fans as he came across amazingly in terms of the way that he conducted himself and in truth he built an amazing rapport with the fans which helped him in future, which I think partially made everyone slightly sadder that he is gone now. The next season, he remained with Chelsea despite rumours linking him away from the club and to all of the biggest teams in the world. He was really unlucky that year in that his marquee signing and the signing that Roman Abramovic gave him didn’t want to be associated with the club any longer, and wanted a return to former club Inter Milan as soon as possible, which was ultimately granted to him the following season.
Thomas Tuchel had pushed all summer for the signing of wonderkid Erling Haaland and everyone can see now that that would have been a game changing signing for the Blues (should Thomas Tuchel have been trusted to pull the trigger on that signing and not instead been given a signing made by the higher ups in the club with no respect for actual footballing ability, or desire to be there or even indeed how they actually fit in with the playing style at Chelsea!) Romelu Lukaku was all wrong for the Blues. He was misprofiled by everyone when he came in at Chelsea and therefore, the club as a whole didnt play to his strengths. Chelsea needed that player to hit the long balls into, just as Erling Haaland plays, and really, if you look at last season as a whole, that was how Chelsea were trying to play with him there.
Everyone saw Romelu Lukaku as the big man up top to just finish chances, somewhat like what Aubameyang is doing now at the club or what Erling Haaland is doing at Manchester City. However, should Abramovic have looked at him more closely, he would have realized that Lukaku is more of a link up striker and is mainly used to play other strikers in as he did and continues to do now at Inter Milan. And for that reason he failed, pretty much down to mismanagement and through the board not trusting Tuchel with his own signings. Ever since that it has become somewhat of a stick that people use to beat Tuchel with, as he did have the most expensive striker in Premier League history and still failed, but people seem to ignore everything I have previously said and the fact that in all truth, Chelsea would have been better off without Romelu Lukaku that season due to his negative influence upon team morale.
Another problem that hampered Chelsea last season was Ben Chillwell’s injury struggles. He was out for most of last season with an injury which was devastating for Thomas Tuchel as Chillwell was an integral part of the team for him and was a player that started and played all of every game when fit. There was also absolutely no depth in this position as we had loaned out Emerson Palmeri previously and there was only an aging, and ultimately useless when it came to it, Marcos Alonso. And so we struggled on, hampered by this injury, until later on in the year. Until Chelsea’s injury curse struck again. The other side’s full back, and probably the other most important player in this system due to his attacking prowess and defending skills was Reece James. He sustained an injury that took him out for somewhere between 1 and 2 months, and this was utterly season ending for Chelsea who were looking to compete on all fronts and having almost 2 months without their two starting full backs is never good for the club and in this time, Chelsea began to drop out of the title race.
Chelsea ended up struggling on through the season, and in the end they finished in 3rd which is a respectable placing for a team hampered by all these issues and ultimately went out to eventual winners Real Madrid in what was a surprise result after Chelsea looked to be all but through until the final minutes, where Real Madrid made a surprising comeback which was very in line with lots of their performances throughout the year. Despite this, Chelsea looked amazing under Tuchel playing at the Bernabeu. Bear in mind this is with Ruben Loftus cheek being forced to play at right wing back and with a makeshift left back playing. And Chelsea still beat Real Madrid away from home and ended up losing on aggregate, which was an unfortunate ending after Chelsea played so well and looked to have made an amazing comeback from the first leg.
And then we enter this season. Thomas Tuchel has made it clear to the board that the team as a whole was in need of a rebuild. Two of Chelsea’s starting centre backs left the club, each on either side of El Clasico, on frees. And so Chelsea needed to fill the hole vacated by Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen. And quickly. The team was in need of 3 new top quality defenders before the new season started. But there was yet another problem. The new ownership had fired all of the recruitment staff that worked under Roman Abramovic, and so the task of recruitment was also placed upon Tuchel entirely, with there being no scouting network in place to identify which players would suit the team or anything of that ilk.
So Tuchel pretty much had to look at players from across Europe whom he thought may be able to play his system and presented them to the board. And so over 200 million pounds were spent, bringing in the highest quality of player for Thomas Tuchel, including the likes of Wesley Fofana, Kalidou Koulibaly, Marc Cuccurella, Raheem Sterling and Pierre Emerick Aubameyang. These looked really promising signings as they would fit nicely into this team and help Chelsea maintain their famous stance of having a mix of developed and developing young players to get the best out of the squad. They would bring seniority at the club and their experience is invaluable and they all looked set to enjoy a really fruitful time at the club under Thomas Tuchel in terms of trophies, once they were all bedded in of course.
Results looked to be coming in the future, but at the start of trying to bed in all of these new stars, in Thomas Tuchel’s 100th game as Chelsea manager, he loses 1-0 to Dinamo Zagreb and is sacked. Much has been talked about this as to reasoning, but the reason many believe to be behind this is the fact that Thomas Tuchel’s relationship with the board became fractured after having all this responsibility of recruitment, as well as the fact that he disagreed with the board who were wanting to sign Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo as a statement signing as well as him being a big player in order to sell shirts.
And so there was the disagreement there, which led to ultimately, should reports be believed, Thomas Tuchel’s sacking. Regardless of any of the poor results that came at the start of the season, Chelsea were not out of any competitions, Chelsea had not fallen well behind the pack in the Premier League. Yes, we had a rocky start, but not the worst in the Premier League by any stretch of the imagination, and freak results do often happen in the Champions League. But the Chelsea fans loved having Tuchel at the helm because of the way that he conducted himself in interviews, and the way that he seemed to love the club, even in tough times.
Here is the most important example for his love of the club, and the reason why for many Chelsea fans, Thomas Tuchel has a special place in their hearts, and this is something I haven’t as of yet mentioned. During the process of the club being sold to the Todd Boehly and Clearlake consortium, Thomas Tuchel stood by the club while he could have simply jumped ship. Wages weren’t being paid, there was a level of uncertainty around the club while both it and Roman Abramovic had their assets frozen and he stood by the club, even famously saying that he would drive the team bus if needed. And the fans loved him for this. In that period of time he genuinely could have gone to any club in world football, as his reputation was so great during that period of time, and nobody would have thought anything of it due to how good he was and how uncertain Chelsea’s future was at that time. But he stayed nevertheless out of love for the club and in the trust that Chelsea would be okay. Therefore, that is why he is and should continue to be treasured by the Chelsea fans as perhaps the second greatest manager in the clubs history, behind only Jose Mourinho.
It was extremely sad to see him leave in this fashion for all Chelsea fans, and some even wanted the new ownership out after they had sacked him. But the ownership had a plan of who and what was to come next…
Chapter 2: The New Ownership
I’ve touched on the ownership previously in this video, but I think I need to talk about more how it ended for Roman Abramovic and how Todd Boehly came into the club as that is something that at the time, i was too busy researching it and properly understanding what was going on to write about it or talk about it in any podcasts.
Due to the war in Ukraine, the government placed sanctions upon Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic, and the club was seized by the UK and no fans were allowed to enter the stadium and all club revenue streams were frozen until Abramovich sold the club. Chelsea were effectively going to go bankrupt unless they were sold with extreme haste. And so, Roman Abramovic, in what was the best move he could have made for the club, decided that he would, in conjunction with the government, allow Chelsea to be sold by auction to the highest bidder with the proceeds going to charity. So, a very public bidding war ensued.
There were many involved parties, with many bidders being refused due to lack of funds or not being suitable for the club as a whole until it came down to just a few. There were, in the end, two major bids that were to be decided between. The Todd Boehly and Clearlake consortium, which evidently, as we are talking about their success now in taking over the club, won, and then there was the consortium headed up by two iconic sporting figures in Serena Williams and Lewis Hamilton, with backing from other private investors, which both wanted to push to purchase the club. Many wanted the club to be owned by such icons of the sporting scene, whereas others had their doubts about the consortium that they were leading.
Todd Boehly was seen as the right man for the job as he had experience in running and managing sporting institutions, such as the LA Dodgers, which are supposedly one of the biggest and best baseball teams in America. We have evidently already seen the effect of having these new owners, as their differing style of management has lead to many higher ups from the club having left after fallouts or disputes between where they see the club, with this including the likes of Petr Cech, Thomas Tuchel and Marina Granovskia, all of whom were very well respected and highly thought of in the footballing world.
First of all, I will start with the importance to the club that Marina Granovskia has had. She has been the driving figure in negotiations for the club and has been extremely important in the respect that she has single handedly made the clubs millions in the transfer market through player sales and has also been excellent in negotiating the best deals for players. Prior to having this role at Chelsea Football club, she had worked as a personal advisor to previous Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic. She has helped the club to negotiate many amazing deals, with some examples being the 150 million euro move to Real Madrid for a wantaway almost 30 year old Hazard with only one year left on his contract at the Blues, or the 50 million pound transfer of Diego Costa away from the club who had been frozen out and had stated that he only wanted Atletico Madrid.
Petr Cech has also left his role at the club, which is also a shame because of how good he has been in that advisory role, where he helped to broker deals for the likes of Kai Havertz, Timo Werner, Ben Chillwell and many more, as well as how he helped as an intermediary between the club and the fans when there was the uproar surrounding the European Super League. I’m talking about where he so famously now went out to the crowd outside of Stamford bridge and talked with the supporters about it.
Graham Potter’s hiring:
As I have said, before, Chelsea had sacked Thomas Tuchel a few games into the season after a couple of poor results from the club. There was mass outrage from the fans and even calls to get rid of the new ownership and bring back Thomas Tuchel because of what he had done for the club. But the new ownership had other ideas. They brought in Graham Potter and most of his backroom staff from Brighton after seeing what he had done at such a small club and how he had made them punch above their weight all of these years all whilst playing attractive football. He was the new, interesting manager in the Premier League. The hipster’s choice, so to speak. He was touted with the England squad, with many believing he was the saviour for England, the man to lead the country to glory in their competitions whilst playing good football. Todd Boehly had other ideas and brought him to Chelsea as their ‘project manager’. Somebody to lead the club forward and be there for many years, somebody to have more control over the club and most importantly, and probably what they didn’t see in Thomas Tuchel and the reason why they probably ultimately sacked him, is because he is famous for being an amazing communicator with the board and being very flexible with his tactical ideas.
The first few games under the leadership of Potter went extremely well, with some good results, beating AC Milan twice and being unbeaten in his first four games. Until recently, where it has all come crashing down. Admittedly yes, we have had some hard fixtures, but losing three games on the trot is not a good look for a new manager coming into a club that has aspirations to win the league. I think things will go well with Potter and that soon he will have us playing good, expansive football and I think that within a couple of years he will have us winning another Premier League.
There is still a lot left to see and a lot left to learn with Graham Potter but as a Chelsea fan I’m excited for the future. We have a great coach and a great team and let’s see what comes of it.
Backroom Recruitments
Under the new ownership, Chelsea have been looking to make many new backroom appointments from many different clubs. The ownership are going for somewhat of a different model to other clubs, who usually don’t tend to pay a lot of attention to their head of recruitments, or backroom staff. However, these new owners have indeed been paying a lot of attention to this and have wasted no time in looking for replacements for all of the outgoing higher ups from the Roman Abramovic regime. The new ownership are looking to recruit lots of new people for the board and I’m going to go through just a couple of them that they have been looking at here.
Paul Winstanley has been appointed as the director of global talent by the new ownership and transfers after the club raided Brighton yet again for some of their best people for the club. He has an extremely good reputation at Brighton for his transfers, having recruited some of the best talents across Europe for cheap fees with players that suit Graham Potter’s style of football, most famously of all, and a player who is now at Chelsea, Marc Cuccurella. Cuccurella was an excellent spot while he was in the Spanish Leagues playing at Barcelona and Eibar. The recognition that he would adapt to the Premier League and the knowledge that he could adapt to the Potter style of play because of his time at Barcelona in the Tiki-Taka system. That is just one example of the understanding he has of the transfer market and his ability to identify and sign talented players who may not have been identified by other clubs around Europe. He will be an amazing asset for the club going forward and his talent recognition being second to none will benefit the club massively.
Chelsea have held unsuccessful talks with former Liverpool man, Michael Edwards, and RB Salzburg Sporting Director Christian Freund. By moving to both of these it shows that the club have ambition by going for some of the best Sporting Directors in the world and they are now targeting Stuart Webber, the Norwich Sporting Director to take over. He is extremely seasoned in his role as Sporting Director and has previously worked at Liverpool, Wrexham, and Wolves.
He will succeed owner Todd Boehly in this role of Sporting Director at the club should he join and he will be more than worthy of doing so thanks to his experience and he will join an elite board of higher ups at the club, including the members that already previously existed. Chelsea’s future is in safe hands at board level.
What does the future hold for Chelsea?
The future looks extremely promising for Chelsea Football Club, with Todd Boehly having an exciting and very American look at what the future could be for Chelsea Football Club. A network of clubs, or the ‘franchise’ of clubs method that Red Bull have been using that is inspired by the American baseball model, where clubs develop players to then have them moved between clubs and eventually move up to the main team, in this case RB Leipzig having players moved to them from Salzburg and New York Red Bulls, among other teams.
And this is supposedly what the owner of the club, Todd Boehly, wants for the future of Chelsea. There were rumours of the owner trying to buy Lyon, and then effectively turn them into the franchise club for Chelsea. You may wonder, why do these clubs agree to become franchise clubs, and agree to this in the first place? Well, the franchise clubs would yet sent some of the best talent from the main club in order to develop and grow them, and these players then make the club go flying up the table because of their talents. Previously Chelsea had somewhat of an affiliation with the Dutch club Vitesse Arnhem to loan their players there so that they could get developed. This has worked wonders for some of the younger players, with some, like Mason Mount, making it into the first team. However, such an affiliation with a team like that in today’s world simply wouldn’t work with the loan system being massively nerfed compared to it previous years due to some of EUFA’s rules. And so the franchise method is necessary as these smaller clubs have ownership of the players and so Chelsea can have more than the current maximum of 8 players out on loan, which means there is a greater chance of there being a diamond in the rough so to speak on one of the books of Chelsea Football Club, or one of their subsidiaries.
And so should this come to fruition, this would effectively future proof the team and ensure that there is always players at the club who are at a world class quality. Some may have qualms with this method, mainly down to how this somewhat monopolises football, with many of the best young players from across world football all being on the biggest club’s rosters from a very young age.
Anyway that is going to be all for today’s episode of the Chelsea News Podcast with me your host Jack. The full script alongside lots of other things to do with the podcast is inside of the website for the Podcast, including different stories and articles and different podcast episode scripts. I have also cited my sources for this piece on the website below the script. Thank you for listening!
Thank you to Mrs Collins for proofreading!
Sources:
Marina Granovskia was a personal assistant to Roman Abramovic prior to the russian buying chelsea: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/soccer/news/chelsea-marina-granovskaia-role-transfer-history/acjdyzkevpallda9cetomgse#:~:text=Granovskaia%27s%20first%20involvement%20with%20Chelsea%20started%20with%20Roman,for%20Abramovich%2C%20rather%20than%20directly%20for%20the%20club.
