Premier League club Chelsea is one of the clubs that is spending heavily on players in the transfer market this season. Thanks to Todd Boehly’s financial strength, Chelsea seems to have no difficulty buying and bringing in the players they want. According to Transfermarkt.com, Chelsea spent around 464 million euros on players this season.
In fact, Chelsea’s purchase of Moises Caicedo from Brighton in this season’s transfer market is in the most expensive category with a purchase value of 116 million euros. Apart from Caicedo, Chelsea also bought a number of players such as Romeo Lavia, Christopher Nkunku, Cole Palmer, Axel Disasi, Nicholas Jackson, Lesley Ugochukwu, and the new goalkeeper from Brighton, Robert Sanchez.
Apart from buying many new players, Chelsea also carried out warehouse cleaning. Several star players were let out of Stamford Bridge. Interestingly, some of these players have joined rival clubs in the Premier League, such as Mason Mount to Manchester United, Robert Kovacic to Manchester City, Kai Haverzt to Arsenal.
In short, Chelsea carried out reforms not only by bringing in lots of new players, but also by shifting players who were deemed not to be in line with the strategy of the new coach, Mauricio Pochettino or also players who did not really contribute much to the team last season.
So, what has happened to Chelsea after four matches in the Premier League have passed? Of the four matches that have taken place, Chelsea’s condition is not much different from last season. The path is uncertain. Have no direction. In fact, Chelsea has a lot of quality players.
Only one win, one draw and two defeats are Chelsea’s achievements from the first four matches of the season in the Premier League this season. With this, Chelsea only collected four points and is currently in 12th position in the standings.
Chelsea started this season in a positive way by holding strong team Liverpool to a 1-1 draw. However, uncertainty arrived when Chelsea lost 1-3 to West Ham in the second week of the Premier League. A new victory was achieved when Chelsea won 3-0 over promoted team Luton Town. However, another black spot hit the team nicknamed the Blue when Chelsea lost to Nottingham Forest 0-1 at Stamford Bridge.
Judging from Chelsea’s journey this season, it could be said that Chelsea is in an uncertain condition. The further consequence in the future is that Chelsea could leave the race to compete in the top four because established teams such as Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool appeared quite consistent at the start of the season.
Chelsea actually has no shortage of potential to catch up and compete with these established teams. It’s just that Chelsea needs the right formula to combine the existing squad with the best strategy. Furthermore, Pochettino, who once coached Paris Saint Germain (PSG) with a group of star players, certainly has experience in managing an expensive squad. This experience can be a provision in developing the current team.
The most important and first thing is to control the egos and individuality aspects of the star players in the team. Moreover, Chelsea is dominated by quality young players. The oldest player at Chelsea is central defender, Thiago Silva. Interestingly, after Silva is Raheem Sterling who is still 28 years old. Therefore, this season’s Chelsea squad is in the youngest category with an average age of 23 years.
Apart from his young age, it is also possible that the price tag attached to a player is a factor that makes the player tend to show his individual side, but ignore team play. For this reason, the ego side of star players must be controlled. Labels as important and untouchable players must be avoided. With this, every player is treated equally. Those who perform convincingly are given a place, and those who are not optimal are encouraged to perform optimally, regardless of their star status.
Apart from that, Pochettino needs to be astute in seeing the character of each player. The goal is that the strategy can be implemented well, the rhythm of the game can run smoothly, and the player can unleash his potential.
The biggest problem will occur when the purchase of players in the transfer market is not in line with the coach’s strategy but rather because of the club owner’s wishes or wanting to compete with other clubs in Europe. As a result, it becomes difficult for coaches to apply their ideas because the players’ characters are not in line with what they want.
However, at this point, the coach needs to adapt to the quality of the players. Take the example of the efforts of Man City coach, Pep Guardiola, who had to adapt his strategy to the game of striker Erling Haaland last season.
Not surprisingly, Man City took advantage of Haaland’s quality with a counter-attacking playing pattern even though he no longer dominated the match. In effect, Haaland performed optimally and the club is also lucky because of Haaland’s contribution.
The same thing also happened with Chelsea where Pochettino also needed to adapt to the players’ game. Instead of applying the same style when he was still coaching Tottenham Hotspur or PSG, Pochettino seems to have adapted to the quality and potential of his players.
For a while, Chelsea was in an uncertain fate. In order to get out of that situation, Chelsea needs to control the egos of each player and also needs to build a team game strategy that is in harmony with the characters of the players.
ASL
