Chelsea and their issues with trust

After not posting for a while, it’s probably time to talk about Chelsea.

An unacceptable 2-2 draw at home to as good as down Ipswich has put Chelsea’s Champions League hopes in the gutter. The fallout of the game led by talk of the team’s relationship with its fanbase whilst Maresca and Clearlake have watched a team go from playing down title talk in December to their season totally collapsing in the space of four months.

The draw with Ipswich follows a goalless affair away at Brentford the previous week, and with the schedule getting no easier, its becoming an uphill battle with all of the Blues’ rivals playing better.

Despite the two previous results putting Chelsea’s fate into closer view, as a fan, its been clear this was going to be the outcome for a little while now. The atmosphere around the club and its fans is completely devoid of any positivity and or hope that Chelsea can make something of their league season. But why is that? Chelsea need this. The first two years of the Clearlake’s reign over the club has been pretty disastrous given they took over the club third in the league and defending European Champions. When the Chelsea fanbase sees such huge opportunity for a step forward within reach, why aren’t they willing their team towards it?

The answer is long, nuanced whilst also not being clear. Some Chelsea fans out there will be hopeful, they’ll be singing from the first at the last minute for all the remaining games, but that doesn’t reflect the overarching consensus feeling within Stamford Bridge every other weekend.

The atmosphere has been an issue for a while at the stadium, but this is a hot topic for most clubs of Chelsea’s size. The introduction of stricter financial regulation, the yearn for picket price surges, hospitality packages to drive matchday revenue has priced out many non-season ticket holding fans from regularly attending games.

Whilst most clubs find it much easier to avoid toxic atmosphere through winning, their is a rejection and toxicity in the air at Chelsea that is especially unique. Groans from the crowd when the team attempt to play out from their own penalty area have been a topic and frustration for Chelsea’s head coach Enzo Maresca for a lot of this season. That frustration reached a moment after the Ipswich game where Maresca cited “the environment” when describing how Chelsea conceded their second goal on Sunday.

Jamie Carragher dissected this on Sky’s Monday Night Football the following evening. Falling behind to a side waiting to be relegated mixed with the sight of another short goal kick led to Chelsea wilting to that crowd pressure and playing long. Carragher analysed how Chelsea’s lack of familiarity with playing long led to them conceding the second.

The conclusion for Carragher was that this a fanbase that does not identify with its coach. Whilst that is true for many, its only part of the issue.

Maresca came into Chelsea following a fairly promising end to the season for his predecessor Mauricio Pochettino. Two trips to Wembley coupled by a healthy surge up the table to sixth meant that, whilst the standards are always much higher at Stamford Bridge, there was genuine progress made across the season.

Clearlake and Pochettino was a marriage that didn’t last long after that though. Tensions bubbling throughout the season led to a parting of ways in the summer. Like many, I didn’t have huge feelings towards Pochettino but I felt like a manager who was very popular amongst the squad and overseen a big improvement in results across the season had done enough to earn a place in the dugout for 24/25. Clearlake decided on Maresca. A coach who, on paper, suited the squad of players - but offered little in the way of pedigree.

Anyone who knows Chelsea and its fanbase, pedigree is a huge deal. If you start underperforming whilst boasting very little previous experience to back yourself up, you very quickly get eaten alive. Chelsea’s previous ownership, regardless of all their geopolitical and off-pitch flaws, understood that. Whether you agreed with everything Roman Abramovich done, he and the Chelsea fanbase had strength in their alignment on what the club had to be. And whilst Chelsea arguably should have won more for how prolific and ambitious Abramovich was, the fans trusted him to find a way.

And trust is an important word here. We have all met someone with huge ‘trust issues’. Their trust has been violated so much by one or multiple people in their lives, that they struggle to just anyone in any scenario. And at the epicentre or that breach of trust is usually lying.

Clearlake have made a habit out of a lot of things over the last three years. Spending lots of money, signing prospects and treating long-serving academy graduates pretty awfully are just some. But the most damaging of them all is the constant lying they have done. The incessant briefings to journalists about how great their project is and the implication of this mythical “four-window plan” that ended last summer.

Roman Abramovich was able to understand and align with the Chelsea fanbase whilst not saying a single word to them outside of a couple statements over the course of almost two decades. Clearlake’s constant implications that what their fans think is wrong whilst simultaneously lacking any proof that their wrong, has led to a complete breakdown of the relationship they have with the Chelsea fanbase.

Many of the fans I converse with online constantly bring up the famous quote put forward by Clearlake about how the previous Chelsea was ‘not very well run on the sporting or business side’. Whilst Abramovich had his issues that have resurfaced, Chelsea have already faced a charge for breaching UEFA’s financial regulations and have failed to secure a front-of-shirt sponsor for the huge chunk of their three year reign.

In summary, Chelsea’s owners have had a lot of bark but very little bite since they took over the club. And I have said multiple times that they are better placed to just shut up and prove everyone what they’re doing is great instead of saying it is. Telling us how great your project is whilst the on-pitch product is where it is, is borderline insulting your fans’ intelligence.

Whilst owners make mistakes and a strategy may not work, accountability makes up for a lot of that. Clearlake have shown very little accountability for the car crash they have overseen and the sentiment has snowballed to a point where nobody trusts them anymore.

The coach’s reaction on sunday was an extension of this. Whatever you feel about the fan’s opinion on your football, I agree there is some impatience that isn’t necessary, telling the fans they are wrong for being frustrated is hardly the solution. Especially when Chelsea have been a below mid-table side since Christmas.

Of course, Maresca had a similar spat with the Leicester City fans last season. The difference is that he could point to the grand canyon gap he had built up at the top of the league. Now, he can’t. Chelsea have regressed across the course of the season and are dangerously close to falling short of the Champions League spots - something that was almost certainly the aim for the board heading into the season.

And I say the aim for the board for a reason. It brings into play the topic of fan expectations. As I have already mentioned, the fanbase doesn’t trust the owners. Therefore, many fans - including myself - expected very little from this season. The managerial appointment came with a large amount of risk. However, the most obvious sign that this season was going to be on a knife-edge for Chelsea was the summer 2024 transfer business.

Chelsea spent (again) over 200 million on around a dozen players. Not one of those players has improved Chelsea this season. But the main problem is, none of the data suggested they would. And for a supposed data-driven model, thats unacceptable.

Chelsea went into last summer with their top target being Michael Olise. A player, who by most databases, was one of the most impactful wide attacking talents in Europe. The signs were good for Chelsea here. Olise spent some of his younger years in the academy, he wanted to stay in London and his brother was also a part of the academy.

Chelsea backed out of the deal after they couldn’t meet Olise’s wage demands. This began a run of Chelsea targeting genuinely well thought out profiles that could improve areas they lacked in their squad. Failed offensives for Jhon Duran and Samu Omorodion have looked like huge opportunities missed for Chelsea this season with the way both have played.

The alternatives? Agent favour signings Joao Felix and Pedro Neto. The best part of 100 million on two players who did not serve a need for this team. Signings that only happened due to an un-beneficial relationship Chelsea director Behdad Egbali has with the pair’s agent Jorge Mendes.

And these two deals were the centrepiece to a transfer window that saw Chelsea get no better whilst outlaying nine-figures on what was supposed to be the fourth and final window of the infamous ‘four-window plan’ Clearlake had for the club.

And its this transfer window where I have to touch on my sympathies for Maresca. If Clearlake had continued their well thought out, sensical recruitment, Maresca may have been able to avoid this season’s collapse.

Paul Winstanley, Laurence Stewart and Behdad Egbali have overstayed their welcome as sporting decision makers. Their body of work given the resources made available has fallen well short of what the fans should expect.

However, the lack of any accountability within that leadership group removes any expectation of change from the fanbase. And this is where the frustration grows. There is a feeling amongst the Chelsea fanbase that despite the season being on the precipice of collapse, there will be no accountability and/or change as a result. When you come into a club like Chelsea, whose fans expect heads to roll when things aren’t going well, you aren’t going to get very far with them without showing the same thing.

Clearlake have overseen a three-year period that far exceeds any moment during the previous regime in terms of the need for change. Abramovich became known for not standing for any poor results, sometimes to his and Chelsea’s fault. But in a time where Chelsea need that accountability and no nonsense direction, its completely absent.

Of course, Clearlake can have their own way of running the club, but this is just one example of how out of touch they are with the psychology of their fans. You have to build a bridge themselves, not ask us to do it.

That’s what has led us to this point. A point where usually you’d say the manager is a dead-man walking, but nobody knows it for sure. Chelsea fans don’t know what not getting in the UCL means for the club and the people in charge. Heads should probably roll but theres an expectation they won’t, and as a sign read outside Stamford Bridge in January 2021 after Frank Lampard got sacked; the circus continues.