Can experience make Chelsea title challengers?
Chelsea's pivot from signing every talented teenager to putting Steve Bruce's Sunderland squad of 2010-11 back together was unexpected, but might it be just what they need?
It seems likely that at some point soon, the 35-year-old Danny Welbeck and the 36-year-old Jordan Henderson will join Chelsea, which represents a remarkable shift in transfer strategy. It was widely anticipated that Chelsea would look to add more experience this summer, but to go from signing every exciting teenager in the world to recreating the Sunderland squad of 2010-11 is not something many saw coming. Steed Malbranque, Phil Bardsley and Ahmed Elmohamady must be sitting expectantly by their phones.
Welbeck and Henderson at least have happy memories of playing together at Stamford Bridge having been part of Sunderland’s improbable 3-0 win there in November 2010. It’s a game best remembered now for Nedum Onuoha’s unexpected dribble to score the opener, the first goal a visiting player had scored in the league at Chelsea that season, but Welbeck and Henderson combined to set up the second for Asamoah Gyan before Welbeck capitalised on an Ashley Cole error to make it three.
The probable signings, though, are not just about Sunderland nostalgia – even if they do follow a rejected approach for Granit Xhaka. They also make sense. Chelsea have not had a genuinely senior senior pro since Thiago Silva left. Reece James may be a perfectly good captain but at least some of his focus is on trying to recover from injury and get his body in the right shape to play two games a week. Plus he’s only 26. Having a figure like Henderson around to enforce standards can only be of benefit. Welbeck may be a less obviously vocal figure but Fabian Hurzeler spoke regularly last season of his value around the dressing-room.
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On It Was What It Was, the football history podcast, we begin a series on the birth of Total Football. Members can binge all five episodes now. Join up here. Listen here.
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The best sides always have a blend of youth and experience. One of Blue Co’s errors was to treat footballers as though they were assets. Buy them young, develop them, sell at a profit may be a reasonable strategy – indeed, the only strategy for the majority of Premier League clubs – but it’s much easier for those players to develop if they have more experienced heads around them to proffer advice and generate a supportive environment.
The absence of that has already led to significant wastage, financial and more importantly human. Nicolas Jackson was brought in on the back of 16 games for Villarreal and expected to be a first-choice striker. Mykhailo Mudryk lost his way. The likes of Deivid Washington, Facundo Buonanotte, Jamie Gittens and Liam Delap have vanished. That’s not to say they would all necessarily have thrived with a Henderson figure there to guide them, but they might have had a better chance.
Chelsea’s squad has always had talent. The issue is of balance and of morale, which is why it’s so easy to get away by their possibilities at this stage of the season (as, yes, I did last year). But it’s equally true that their tenth-place finish last season was freakish in the sense that they underperformed significantly, damaged both by Enzo Maresca’s departure – or more specifically the issues leading to his departure – and the misguided appointment of Liam Rosenior.
There will always be doubts about any manager coming fresh into the Premier League, and those are magnified by what happened to Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid, but he showed his quality as a coach at Bayer Leverkusen and Madrid are such a strange institution, such a teeming pit of egos, that nobody can seriously be condemned for struggling there. But Chelsea, surely will improve this season. It would be a major surprise if they do not qualify for the Champions League, not least because they were bad enough last season that they have no European competition to worry about while there are three teams who finished above them last season – Bournemouth, Sunderland and Brighton – who may find it difficult to cope with both domestic and European demands.
Could they mount a title challenge? They’ve addressed one of the major concerns of last season by bringing in Maxence Lacroix, the sort of central defender they sorely missed last season once Levi Colwill was injured. Goalkeeper is still an area requiring an upgrade and, assuming Delap and Jackson sold, they need another centre-forward, even if Welbeck is seen as a deputy for João Pedro. The 23-year-old Emmanuel Emegha is highly rated and has done well for Strasbourg, but he barely played last season because of persistent hamstring problems.
That aside, the problem is one of excess. Enzo Fernández presumably will leave. It’s hard to see where Pedro Neto fits. Marc Cucurella, Andrey Santos and Tyrique George have already been sold. Garnacho has gone to Aston Villa on loan, with a permanent deal likely. These are all perfectly reasonable moves. They need to be made. It’s just that in correcting issues in the squad, Chelsea are creating yet more turbulence. It may be necessary, but this is a club that keeps on saying that if they have just one more summer revolution everything will be fine. What is needed is stability.
Signing two thirtysomethings suggests at least a recognition of that. It would be better, of course, if Welbeck and Henderson were veterans who has spent years at the club, who represented its values and traditions – if, cynics might say, Chelsea weren’t again trying to buy something intangible. But players with the right attitude can help change the mindset – and Chelsea, it should not be forgotten, would have closed to within three points at the top of the table had they beaten them at home on 30 November last year. Despite the first-half dismissal of Moisés Caicedo, they drew 1-1 and there seemed little reason why they couldn’t posh Arsenal close. But they then lost at Leeds and drew at Bournemouth and the season disintegrated.
There is a core there. This looks a relatively open title race. They don’t have European competition. If Xabi Alonso can instil balance, if there is a degree of stability, why shouldn’t Chelsea challenge?