Despite the international break, Chelsea have still managed to plunge into panic and chaos.
One report from Bloomberg was enough to blow off the lid of what frankly could be described as Pandora’s box.
Report after report has dropped and brief after brief and we are now seemingly in the midst of a civil war between the ownership.
I won’t go into too much context between the situation as that’s been widely described but we are now fully in the midst of a briefing campaign from both Boehly and Clearlake.
So, developing an opinion on the situation, I will detail roughly who I think we should back.
The major differences between Boehly and Clearlake and who I think is better:
Boehly and Eghbali (I’ll use him as the figurehead for Clearlake) share massively differing viewpoints on how to run Chelsea Football Club.
Eghbali is deemed very very hands-on and wants two Sporting Directors to report to him. Boehly wants one Sporting Director with autonomy.
Another major difference is Egbhali’s reluctance to invest in older players whereas Boehly prefers a balance between younger and older players.
These are actually pretty major differences even if they don’t seem that big on the surface.
It’s pretty likely Eghbali prefers to invest in younger players as opposed to older players simply due to the business aspect of things.
Older players decrease in value as they age, more so that they are already old. Young players, almost exclusively, will gain value.
Even if they are not sold for that value, they do hold ‘more value’ – you just have to try and negotiate that in a deal.
Ignoring that practicality, the model is reasonable on a footballing aspect too. Investing in potential gives a reasonable chance you’ll end up with a pretty decent team after the players have matured.
The issue is that we haven’t acquired any players that can actually make the team decent now. Boehly agrees with this perspective so in this sense, I’d back Boehly.
Another thing with relying on a team full of players with ‘potential’ is that football doesn’t work like that.
There’s no guarantee that Player A is going to become world-class just because they’ve shown the potential to do so.
Young players need a suitable environment to actually become world-class. They need no pressure, support, and platforming to develop and become the best player they possibly can be.
Unfortunately, you just can’t get that at Chelsea due to the impatience of the fanbase and the size of the club. Another thing Eghbali does that I don’t agree with is his over-involvement and influence on the Sporting Director’s operations.
We can blame them all we want for their, at times, flawed recruitment but is it really all their fault?
We know for a fact they have identified some very good players with very good potential and in my opinion they’ve built the squad reasonably well but at the same time just how much of it was actually their decision.
Was Mudryk a sporting director signing? Enzo Fernandez? These two stand out the most due to their profiles and Mudryk’s extreme immaturity (Enzo makes every midfield very unbalanced without someone who will win the ball and consume extraordinary amounts of ground).
So again, maybe Boehly’s view of having a Sporting Director with autonomy is for the better.
Who do I think we should actually back:
Whoever wins. I think both have their positives, though Boehly might have more.
If we stick with Clearlake’s approach then we can sleep knowing the last two years weren’t an absolute waste.
If we switch to Boehly’s approach and he overhauls the entire club again? We could waste another two years being in more transition.
If Boehly could join without changing almost everything again then that might be the optimal solution but I’m just not sure we can justify scrapping everything and starting again.
We are a club desperate for consistency and results and switching the vision might just put this even further down an already long line.
Whatever happens though, we absolutely have to back the team and players on the pitch because they are what matters – not whatever is going on behind the scenes.
Unfortunately, neither is a slam dunk back to success, and this latest bombshell out of the club just goes to show why there so many fans that doubt and have distaste towards the consortium.
