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All of us who’ve followed the Premier League for the past decade or so will remember Arsene Wenger’s French revolution at Arsenal. Wenger’s almost fanatical need to bring in French players (or French speaking in general) provoked criticism from a lot of quarters, with a lot of the club’s own fans lambasting him for being too narrow minded with his transfer policy. Pretty rational logic seeing that Thierry Henry, Patrick Viera, Robert Pires, Mikael Silvestre, Armand Traore, Gael Clichy, William Gallas, Sylvain Wiltord, Emmanuel Petit, Gilles Grimandi, Lassana Diarra, Olivier Giroud, Mathieu Flamini, Samir Nasri, Laurent Koscielny, Marouane Chamakh (Moroccan), Thomas Vermaelen (Belgian), Bacary Sagna, Abou Diaby, Kolo Toure, Gervinho, Emmanuel Eboue (last three from the Ivory Coast) are all either French or French speaking.
Fair enough, one might say, considering that Arsene being a Frenchman will have scouting knowledge in France that must be extensive to say the least. But the experiment has hardly paid dividends, as only the first 3 names in the list made decisive contributions, while a few others on the list have flourished only in phases at Arsenal. In recent times, all the key contributions have come from non-French players, namely Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie, Theo Walcott and if I may be allowed to be a little cheeky, Andre Arshavin (for a season). Clearly, too much of one thing is bad, which brings us to the focus of this article.
It is no secret that the Abramovich revolution at Chelsea has been along similar lines. It is also a well known fact that Roman Abrahimovic is an admirer of the free flowing, attacking variety of football, so much so that he has gone to extremes to ensure Chelsea adapt to that style of play. Making Henk Ten Cate the team’s “attacking coach” under Avram Grant (reportedly for a cool 2 million GBP a year), employing former Chelsea man Andre Villas Boas in the hope that he would recreate his Porto experiment at Chelsea and chasing Pep Guardiola to the very second that he joined Bayern Munich, it seemed like Abrahimovic had left no stone unturned.
That was until he took matters into his own hands, and decided that the squad that won the Champions League needed a major overhaul. That resulted in exits for Raul Meireles, Salomon Kalou and most significantly, Didier Drogba from a squad which had overturned a 3-1 deficit against Napoli, stayed unbeaten against Barcelona over two legs and snatched a penalty shoot out win against a GERMAN side that had arguably one of the best front lines in world football. Then, he opened his cheque book to finance the arrivals of some world class (but relatively untested) signings, the Belgian Magician Eden Hazard (LOSC Lille, 32 million GBP), a Brazilian hotshot by the name of Oscar (Internacional, 25 million GBP) and Crystal Palace and Wigan sensation Victor Moses (9 million GBP). One must recall here that these three signings happened after Chelsea had signed German winger Marko Marin from Werder Bremen (5 million GBP).
So the bare facts stated that Chelsea had traded its talismanic striker who had won them almost every major final they played in for 4 wingers, all of them under the age of 23 and collectively worth a massive 71 million GBP. So, what you had now was a squad, with Fernando Torres who had misfired for eternity, Daniel Sturridge who had been largely selfish in his frustrating displays and Romelu Lukaku, who at 19, was already disgruntled at being 4th choice. Sadly, that wasn’t the only problem.
With Meireles gone, Chelsea’s midfield now had only Ramires and Lampard (who was now almost 34) who had shown that their displays merited a place in the squad. The other options were Jon Obi Mikel, who couldn’t hit the side of a barn from 10 meters out (yes, he hasn’t scored in 181 PL games and hit the bar recently from the penalty spot in the African Cup of Nations), and Oriol Romeu, who had been largely on the periphery at the Bridge.
Instead of focusing on shoring up that midfield, Abramovich’s obsession with having young exciting players went completely overboard. Eden Hazard, Oscar and Juan Mata were similar in playing style, players with high flair and creativity to open up defenses but a disappointing unwillingness to track back into defensive positions. Add to that Marko Marin and Victor Moses, who loved getting to the byline with an excellent turn of pace, and Kevin De Bruyne, the Genk winger who had never played in the Premier League and at age 20, wasn’t extremely experienced either. In simple terms, Chelsea now had 6 wingers (all under the age of 25) competing for 3 spots behind Fernando Torres, and all of them were inexperienced with the exception of Juan Mata, who had consistently put in good performances in the Champions League for Valencia.
All this has been pretty clearly exposed in Chelsea’s season so far. A great start was followed by a massive wobble which has now left them in 3rd place behind the Manchester clubs, and an inability to hold leads has seen them drop vital points against the likes of Swansea (1-1 away), West Ham (3-1 away), Southampton (2-2 home) and Juventus (2-2 home), the last two instances being where they blew a two goal lead. Their elimination at the group stage of the Champions League was a massive shock to some, but considering all the changes, it was a pretty predictable outcome.
Yet, if you’ve gone through all the rumors, Abramovich has done little to suggest that he would concentrate on tightening up the engine room. The transfer segments suggested that a deal was in place for Brazilian attacking mid Taison from Metallist Kharkhiv, and also that Chelsea were ready to bid for Celta Vigo forward Iago Asapas and that summer moves had been planned for Radamel Falcao and Andre Schurrle, who were all again (yes you guessed it) attacking players.
It would be a decent assessment to say that Abramovich should stop trying to interfere with what is clearly the manager’s jurisdiction. After all, a manager like Rafa Benitez would definitely be more tactically knowledgeable to understand what the need of the hour is. Plus, Chelsea aren’t doing themselves any favor by buying good talent and loaning them out, only to find themselves buying yet more attacking flair. Romelu Lukaku has been doing a fine job at West Bromwich Albion; the same can be said for Kevin De Bruyne who has put in impressive performances in Germany for Werder Bremen. Lucas Piazon, meanwhile, who was touted as a future Brazil international, has been loaned out to Malaga for first team experience and Daniel Sturridge has been allowed to leave for Liverpool, where he’s bagged 3 goals in 3 games.
What the Chelsea fans and the hierarchy should realize is that, in tactical terms, when you play a 4-2-3-1 like Real Madrid, the two men in the centre of the park should have the ability to control proceedings so as to facilitate the 3 in front to operate freely. A deep lying playmaker in Xabi Alonso, who is known to possess an exceptional range of passing, along with a hard working, ball winning midfielder in Sami Khedira has helped the trio of Angel di Maria/Mesut Ozil/Cristiano Ronaldo/Jose Callejon/Kaka (depending on who is employed) behind the lone forward in the form of Gonzalo Higuain or Karim Benzema to flourish. If those two men in the middle of the park cannot win the ball and get it forward to the 3 attacking midfielders, the dynamics of the formation cease to exist.
The major example of this would be Chelsea’s 4-1 drubbing by Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Super cup game, where Madrid dominated midfield, allowing no service to reach Chelsea’s”3 musketeers”. Chelsea has hard working players in the form of Ramires and Mikel, but the departure of Meireles has put more responsibilty on the shoulders of an aging Frank Lampard, who at his age cannot be expected to adapt of the rigors of the Premier League schedule and its physical demands. Oriol Romeu has been ruled out of the season with an injury, Mikel’s departure for the African Cup of Nations along with David Luiz’s injury has left the squad extremely short of options in the middle of the park. Without the squad depth that has been a key characteristic of the Chelsea sides of the past, unexpected results are bound to pop up occasionally.
What Rafa Benitez has done is that he’s recognized the above problems and tried to be as resourceful with his current squad as he can be. He has recognized the wealth of attacking riches at his disposal, but has tried to add a little more defensive steel by giving a more industrious Victor Moses the nod ahead of Oscar. His willingness to use David Luiz in midfield has paid off, his well timed challenges and occasional through balls have been useful to say the least. Now, all that’s needed is for Chelsea to realize that their young squad, although world class, needs a few games under their belt and gain more experience. With Didier Drogba gone and probably Frank Lampard following suit, the dearth of experience will certainly take time to fill.
Also, Abramovich (more importantly) should realize that there’s no need to bring in any more attacking midfielders/wingers, and should focus on getting his hands on a midfielder who can dictate the game and cause problems in the middle of the park, where games are won and lost. In Claude Makelele, Frank Lampard and Michael Essien, Chelsea has had legends who made their respective positions their own. It’s time someone else steps up, and becomes the centre of Chelsea’s focus.
