Pre-season games are rarely a reliable guide to a team’s prospects for the coming campaign, but Thomas Tuchel’s concerns about Chelsea’s preparation for the new Premier League season are. The alarm bells that started ringing six months ago are only getting louder.
Chelsea’s 4-0 loss to London rivals Arsenal in Orlando on Saturday, which prompted Tuchel to make a blunt assessment of his squad’s shortcomings, will have no bearing on whether the defending Club World Cup champions can deliver titles. silver this season.
Whether Chelsea succeeds or fails will depend on how they overcome the turmoil that has seen ownership of the club change for the first time in 19 years, with the era of Roman Abramovich drawing to a close and a consortium led by Dodgers co-owner of The Angels. Todd Boehly taking command at Stamford Bridge.
Abramovich is gone, and senior executives Bruce Buck and Marina Granovskaia have followed the Russian out the door, but while staff at all clubs will always say they don’t focus on off-field matters, the full impact of the Changes in the Chelsea boardroom are now being seen. I felt all the way to the dressing room. And that’s why Tuchel’s frustrations surfaced after his team’s dismal performance against Arsenal at Camping World Stadium.
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“I’m far from relaxed,” Tuchel said. “We just weren’t good enough. We just weren’t competitive. I look at the last season and parts of the game where we struggled, parts of the season where we struggled, and then we got banned and players left us and some players are trying to leave us, and this is where it is.
“So we put out an urgent appeal for quality players, a lot of quality players. We have two quality players.” [Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly], but we are not competitive like that. Unfortunately, you could see it today.”
Tuchel’s problem is that Chelsea needed stability and a clear strategy this summer because his side were heading into a crucial transfer window, even before the sanctions, imposed on Abramovich by the UK government in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. because of his supposed connections. to President Vladimir Putin, led to the sale of the club.
The key players were nearing the end of their contracts: anthony rudiger, Andreas Christensen Y César Azpilicueta — and the team needed to reduce the age of their team in all areas. the failure of Romelu Lukaku (115 million euros) and Timo Werner (€53m), big signings from the last two summer windows at a combined cost of €168m, to score the goals they were contracted for meant Chelsea would also be looking for reinforcements in attack.
But the imposition of sanctions left Chelsea operating in crisis mode and unable to plan for the summer window, while the prolonged takeover also put the club in limbo and denied Tuchel the opportunity to identify and secure transfer targets.
Chelsea have done well to sign Sterling (27) from Manchester City and Koulibaly (31) from Napoli, but both are signings for the here and now rather than the future. And with Lukaku returning to Inter Milan on loan, and Rudiger (Real Madrid) and Christensen (Barcelona) departing as free agents, Sterling and Koulibaly are arguably filling the gaps created by departures rather than adding strength. and existing quality. This was a summer where Chelsea needed to build and refocus rather than close gaps.
Winning the FIFA Club World Cup and reaching the Carabao Cup and FA Cup finals (both lost on penalties to Liverpool) could paint a picture of a successful season for Chelsea, but Tuchel will know his team suffered. an alarming loss of form in the closing weeks of the final term, winning just three of their last 10 games in all competitions.
For the former coach of Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain, the uncertainty off the pitch translated into a loss of direction on it and the pre-season has not served to assure him that things are changing on both grounds.
Tuchel needs Boehly (who is now also the club’s interim sporting director) to sign more players and quickly. Efforts to sign the defender jules konde Sevilla are held back by Barcelona’s interest in the player, but the manager at least seems to have won the battle to convince his new boss to sign for the Manchester United veteran Cristiano Ronaldo it would not be a solution to the team’s problems.
Boehly appears to have the ambition and financial backing to deliver more signings ahead of the Premier League opener against Chelsea at Goodison Park on August 6, but Tuchel clearly has concerns about whether his existing players will be able to prove themselves.
Chelsea need someone to put the ball in the back of the net on a regular basis, but Werner, Christian Pulisic Y Hakim Ziech everyone has failed to do that since he signed for the club.
“Listen, it’s the same players, so why should I change anything?” Tuchel said. “We will see, hopefully, development, but at the moment, we have the same problems because we have the same players.”
Poor results, subpar performances, and the same old faces that don’t measure up. Unless Tuchel gets the players he wants and needs, Chelsea risks slipping back this season.