5 factors that derailed Chelsea's 2017/18 season

With 3 games remaining this season, a late push for a Champions League spot is beginning to look beyond Chelsea. The Blues have won their last three league games, but they still sit in 5th place, trailing 4th placed Tottenham by 5 points, and still have to play 3rd place Liverpool at Anfield this weekend.

A 5th place finish, potential FA Cup victory and reaching the last 16 of the Champions League would be considered a successful season for most clubs, but for Chelsea, it’s likely to be viewed as a disaster – and current boss Antonio Conte is likely to pay for the poor season with his job.

So what’s gone wrong for the Blues this year? Naysayers would say plenty, but these five factors may have played a bigger role than others in derailing Chelsea’s season.

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#1 The Diego Costa texting scandal

The controversial exit of Diego Costa lowered morale and left Chelsea weak up front

2016/17 was an odd season for striker Diego Costa, who fell out with Antonio Conte in January 2017 amid rumours of a potential move to the mega-rich Chinese Super League. In the end though, Costa’s move never came off, and he returned to the side and scored a further 6 goals – taking his total for the season to 20 – to help the Blues lift the Premier League title.

For all intents and purposes it appeared that the Spanish striker – who had been Chelsea’s key player in their 2014/15 title-winning season too – was firmly embedded back into the fold, but instead, literally weeks after the season had ended, Costa received word that he was no longer wanted at Stamford Bridge.

To make the situation even more demeaning, the player was told of this via a text message exchange with Conte, who showed how thoroughly ruthless he could be.

Costa eventually managed to secure a move to his former club Atletico Madrid, but due to the deal being agreed after the summer transfer window closed, the player was stuck in limbo before moving in January.

How did this help to derail Chelsea’s season? Firstly, despite signing Alvaro Morata from Real Madrid, the loss of Costa left the Blues woefully short of firepower – especially with Tammy Abraham sent to Swansea on loan and Conte not trusting Michy Batshuayi.

And secondly, prior to leaving Costa reportedly showed his teammates the texts – meaning they would’ve been very aware of Conte’s ruthless side.

With rumours of Conte having “lost the dressing room” coming from Stamford Bridge throughout the season, perhaps his frank texts to Costa had more impact than he could’ve initially imagined.

#2 Conte’s disagreements with the board

Manager Antonio Conte has had some bitter disagreements with the Chelsea board

Despite winning the Premier League title in 2016/17, problems between Chelsea’s board and manager Antonio Conte were being reported as far back as March 2017.

At that stage the reports were simple rumblings that Conte and technical director Michael Emenalo were having disagreements over which players to sign in the summer transfer window, but soon other reports came out too – supposedly Conte wanted to appoint an Italian to replace assistant coach Steve Holland while Chelsea’s board felt it important to keep an Englishman in that role.

By the end of the summer not only was Conte supposedly unhappy with the amount of money that had been made available to sign new players – despite spending a club record £70 million on striker Alvaro Morata – but he was also unhappy with the fact that the board had spent so much on Morata and that they’d left the transfer so late, meaning the player didn’t have as much time to train with his new side during the pre-season period.

Disagreements between the board and manager were always going to spell disaster for Chelsea, but an on-pitch crisis could easily have been averted had the tensions been calmed before the beginning of the season. But that didn’t happen and in April 2018 Conte outright slammed the board in an interview, stating that the club didn’t seem willing to match his ambitions when it came to signing new players.

That interview came in March – during which Chelsea were in a slump that saw them pick up just 3 points from 5 league games. With such an unhappy atmosphere around the club and simmering tensions between the board and a manager who seemed to be engineering his exit, is it any wonder that Chelsea’s season fell apart?

#3 New signings struggled to fit in

New signings such as Tiemoue Bakayoko have struggled to fit in at Stamford Bridge

Antonio Conte might’ve complained about the amount of money that was made available for him to spend on new players this season. Unfortunately, despite a large amount being spent, Chelsea’s new signings this season haven’t exactly set the world alight.

Despite breaking Chelsea’s transfer record, striker Alvaro Morata has scored just 11 goals in Premier League action – a terrible return in comparison to other top strikers like Mo Salah, Harry Kane and Romelu Lukaku.

Midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko has looked horribly out of his depth basically every time he’s played, while Davide Zappacosta, Danny Drinkwater, Ross Barkley and Emerson Palmieri have barely even featured.

Defender Antonio Rudiger has performed decently, but Olivier Giroud has largely been used as a substitute by Conte despite scoring a decent 4 goals in 14 appearances. Essentially, Chelsea’s new signings have been busts this season, and given they’re all players who signed under his leadership, Conte must take some of the blame for their moves going badly wrong.

Throw in the sales of Nemanja Matic and Nathaniel Chalobah – players who probably would’ve out-performed Bakayoko – and the allowing of both Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Michy Batshuayi to go out on loan, and Chelsea’s disastrous form in the transfer market this season has definitely contributed to their poor season.

#4 The defence has been unsettled throughout the season

Chelsea's defence has been shaky throughout 2017/18

One of the hallmarks of Chelsea’s title-winning campaign in 2016/17 was the fact that their defence – once Antonio Conte settled on a three-man back line – was essentially settled throughout the season.

Central defenders Cesar Azpilicueta, Gary Cahill and David Luiz started the majority of the season’s league games, with Azpilicueta appearing in all 38 games.

This season however, the Blues’ defence has been largely unsettled, and that’s meant for a far shakier foundation for the team. A mix of Cahill, Azpilicueta, and new signings Antonio Rudiger and Andreas Christensen have largely formed Chelsea’s back line this season, but thus far only Azpilicueta has played more than 30 league games.

And on numerous occasions, both Cahill and Christensen have looked extremely susceptible to individual mistakes.

Despite his fine form last season – being named in the PFA Team of the Year – David Luiz has been almost completely absent due to a combination of an apparent fall-out with Conte and subsequent injury issues.

While the Blues have conceded 34 goals thus far this season compared to 33 last season – not a massive difference – they also only let in more than 2 goals once in 2016/17 in a game against Arsenal prior to the utilization of the three-man defence.

This season that’s happened 4 times, with 3 of the occasions coming against lower sides in Burnley, Watford and Bournemouth. Chelsea’s unsettled defence has certainly contributed to their weaker season this time around and it’s something that desperately needs fixing in 2018/19.

#5 The Champions League results against Roma

Chelsea's disastrous results against Roma in the Champions League harmed their season

Early on in this season’s Champions League, it looked like Chelsea were going to be genuine contenders. They started on fire, destroying the unheralded Azerbaijani side Qarabag, and then even managed to defeat perennial contenders Atletico Madrid away at the Wanda Metropolitano. But then they came up against Italian side Roma and everything seemed to go wrong.

Firstly – in a game made stranger by the decision of Conte to play defender David Luiz in midfield - Chelsea took a 2-0 lead at Stamford Bridge only to ship 3 goals before being rescued late on by Eden Hazard. And in the return fixture at the Stadio Olimpico, the Blues were simply demolished, losing 3-0 in one of their heavier European defeats in recent memory.

In both games Chelsea were largely outplayed by the Italian side, and the poor results meant that the Blues only managed to finish in second place in their group. The fact that they were unseeded going into the round of 16 meant that they drew Barcelona, and after securing a 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge they were well beaten 3-0 at the Nou Camp.

Had they been able to secure better results against Roma, Chelsea would’ve avoided Barca in the round of 16 and may have drawn a weaker side like the one Roma played – Shakhtar Donetsk. And if that had happened, who knows what might’ve become of their season?

They could well have ridden the wave of momentum from the Champions League into the Premier League and not hit the sticky patch of form in early 2018 that likely ruined their campaign.