Gittens and the Art of Coaching

What does Chelsea's transfer policy say about their grasp of team-building? And why has trying to hone a player to fit a system becomes so unfashionable?

Last Saturday, Jamie Gittens signed for Chelsea on a seven-year contract for a fee of £48.5m. Which is one of those deals that on the one hand makes a lot of sense – Chelsea, for all their recent expenditure on forwards, somehow do find themselves short in that area – and yet on the other feels vaguely grotesque: how can they possibly be signing another winger, and what does that say about the economics of the modern game?

Gittens is a right-footed forward who operates on the left, and as such is a direct replacement in the squad for Jadon Sancho, who has returned to Manchester United after the end of his loan deal. There has been some suggestion Nicolas Jackson could operate wide after the arrival of two centre-forwards in Liam Delap and João Pedro, but that remains, at best, a work in progress. Given the uncertainty over the future of Mykhailo Mudryk, and the probable sale of Christopher Nkunku, it’s understandable Chelsea would want to bring in fresh blood on that flank. Immediately the talk was of increasing strength in depth, of competition for Noni Madueke, Pedro Neto and Tyrique George – although it seems probable that George will be loaned out.

Which is all very well, but at the same time, after Chelsea’s Club World Cup quarter-final victory over Palmeiras, there was also excited chatter about how Cole Palmer might link up with Estêvão, a playmaker-cum-winger Chelsea signed last season before loaning back to the Brazilian club. Perhaps they could play together, as two inside-forwards in a 3-4-2-1. But that really isn’t how Chelsea have played under Enzo Maresca. So is Estêvão cover for Palmer? Or is Palmer going to move out to the right? Or, more likely, is the plan to use Estêvão and his dribbling ability wide? If Palmer and Estêvão both play, where do the wingers fit? And if you don’t have width high up the pitch, is that really making the best use of Delap and João Pedro?

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Then came the news that Madueke has agreed personal terms with Arsenal, two and a half years after he joined Chelsea from PSV Eindhoven for £28.5m. No fee has yet been agreed but Chelsea would reportedly accept £50m. Is Gittens really a marked improvement on Madueke? Perhaps he is; perhaps Chelsea really have identified an extra level of talent. Gittens certainly seems a more fluid dribbler, somebody who keeps the ball more under his centre of gravity, while Madueke, particularly in his stepovers, can seem almost to be wagging his foot over the ball.

The problem is that to believe Chelsea have meticulously sifted the world for an upgrade would be to ignore everything that the past three years have taught us about Chelsea’s transfer strategy. This, after all, is a club that has made 49 signings in the three years since Clearlake bought the club. They may see themselves as disruptors and insist they are changing the boring old parameters of European football, but it’s very hard to see any kind of pattern. The new ways, evidently, have very little time for traditional concepts of team-building.

The signings still feel like some great PSR wheeze, maintaining a constant churn of players, the combination of profit in the deal and amortisation meaning they’re always complying with the regulations, even if that at times may appear to a layman as a sleight of accountancy. And if they’re not, they can always sell another bit of the ground to an associated company, given the Premier League’s reluctance to close that loophole.

But if this is a case of perpetual disruption, how long before players wonder whether they really want to be part of the constant churn? Or perhaps that’s an old-fashioned way of considering things; maybe the modern player doesn’t want to settle down in a system that suits him at a club where he can become a legend; perhaps he wants to keep moving, to keep picking up the signing on fees and improved wages. Perhaps Chelsea will come to be seen as a useful bridging club between the Netherlands or Germany and the Premier League.

Viewed with anything approaching traditional eyes, though, it all looks very odd. The notion of coaching, the idea that you might take a player and improve them, seems not to exist for Chelsea. Once the logic would have been that a club acquired a player, honed them and refined them, polished them, gently guided them in the ways of the club. It might take months, or years, but a player came to understand the system and then could produce his best within it. You certainly didn’t spend all that time developing them only to flog them on to a direct rival after a couple of seasons.

But Chelsea seem to treat players as you would treat a smartphone. You know, almost from the moment that you buy them that they are in decline, that obsolescence is in-built. You keep using them, aware of the attrition. You know the battery life is declining. You know it takes longer to charge than it used to. You know there’s a new model with a better camera. After a few years you perhaps decide to replace it, with a newer flashier model whose decline is only just beginning.

That may make sense for electronic goods in this phase of capitalism, but players surely shouldn’t be subject to a similar mentality, or at least not over a timeframe of a couple of years. And it’s not as though you immediately hand your previous phone to one of your half dozen immediate rivals.

Quite apart from the treatment of players less as humans than as commodities to be traded, the policy neglects the fundamental basis of football, it’s great strength as a sport, which is that while individuals matter, they matter far less than the unit. The game is about the team; and it is in the alchemy of creating a team that greatness lies as a coach.

But for those who understand only money and investment, that is an inexplicable art.