Introduction to a 5-part series

Charting a blueprint: let’s recast Chelsea’s one billion spent since the takeover.

The angle of this take will be at the intersection of squad building, player analysis and coaching.

• Player analysis: the set of skills to compete in games, how good is it, does it align with the demands of the league

• Squad building: how to provide the man who picks the lineup, reasonable interchangable options without turning starting XI into a sick whack a mole challenge

• Coaching: how to assemble players together

I am going to rely on the McLachBot scouting tool.

The Market Value (MV) is an educated guess based oon how the selling club is run.

Salaries, when mentioned, are sourced on capology, and are meant to provide a ballpark.

Each sector will be looked at, in terms of players brought in / departures

In terms of player departures, I will not mention senior players who left after joining Chelsea. I will however point at the options Chelsea had in house

The player pitch is meant to be impactful, and not throrough

We’ll then decide whether to #TrustTheProcess or #FlushTheProcess

Episodes:

• THE PROJECT

• SQUAD BUILDING 101

  • Resource allocation

    • Theoretical squad design

    • Theoretical salary structure

    • Implementing the salary structure and practical leeway

    • The outlook of a squad template

• GOALKEEPERS

• DEFENDERS

  • Left back

  • Centre back

  • Right back

• MIDFIELDERS

  • Distance management and associated challenges

  • Shorten distances, for who, what for

  • Speed dating minute pitch

  • Find a girafe, why, what for

  • Football’s vernacular language to decypher

  • LMFAO since when you judge a midfielder on goals

  • Litterature behind the front 3

• ATTACKERS

  • MSF: Mané Firmino Salah

  • Crashing the box

  • Expected shiver (xShiver)

  • Foundations or penthouse

  • Profiling the attack

    • LEFT WINGERS

    • RIGHT WINGERS

    • PLAYMAKER

    • STRIKER

  • THE ROLE OFFSET

THE PROJECT

Whilst the exact nature and ambition of the project can only be second guessed from what we think we know rather than anything remotely looking like a clear explainer (conference tidbits aren’t a thing), some of it is also pretty new as much in terms of personel turnover and raw amount of money spent.

In a nutshell, we don’t know. We’ll nevertheless keep in mind that in general terms, there was no sugar daddy anymore filling in to balance the books.

In such a situation, clearing out the wage bill seemed necessary. That part is very much understandable.When reinvesting differently, a number of questions arise:

A club project, with a multiclub model is a vast area to comment on, so we’ll stick with these questions

• What is the end game? Sell once they play well enough to draw offers superior to their remaining book value?

• Sign talent on “low” wages, long contracts; how much reassurances have we got to make sure they can improve by coaching and playing time, whilst delivering something else than 12th place mediocrity?

• How do you turn profit on a 30 million player that doesn’t play (well)? And how many times can you sell lemons to other clubs before the aliexpress dropshipping gets called out?

• Where are the “young talent” meant to play, accounting for FIFA’s 6 loan restriction from 2024 (and 3 from the same club)? Buy more clubs?

• What happens with lemons that don’t turn good? How many head coaches get sacked before the sunk cost fallacy stops being a thing? Whose “expertise” is on the line first?

• Balance the books with Academy graduates, but what is the pathway to make sure the up and coming Academy grads get the minutes Mount, Tomori, Abraham got for Chelsea in Champions League that made them (WIN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE) and attract offers between 30-50 million when deemed suplus to requirement (PURE FFP PROFIT)?
  Fabio Borini, 162 minutes at 1st team level was sold for 0.3 million in 2011.

• How can we make sure these players aren’t replaced by bang average signings that don’t move the needle on the pitch. But thankfully and incidentally re-uniting with former work colleagues? Still a better love story than Twilight. Data driven?

• Is there any coaching veto to that air-conditioned squad building, especially when to account for stuff nobody thinks about (like second ball, headers and gamemanship), that won’t always be succesfully circumvented by shoehorning 4 CBs or winding up players (that only end up picking 30 bookings for dissent by Boxing Day)

• Where does the money come from once all the family jewell (academy players) are sold on a stall, the PL2 team sees 20 million Deivid Washington only running one-way at Kingsmeadows and jumping over tackles, and Lyon send Diego Moreira back to London via Easyjet after failing to make the bench at rock bottom Lyon? A shirt sleeve sponsor?

There’s the project, and the people tasked to deliver it on and off the field.

#TheProject can’t possibly include “keeping a few spare bucks to light on fire with João Félix’s loan to cosplay Wout Weighorst” once the team is bang on every mid table metric including the league table halfway through the season. Or sell Lewis Hall for 5 million after a season without playing whilst Cucurella disappoints in another “fresh start” given by the half a dozen people tasked to name a lineup already.

Why did we get here, and was it a neccesary step?

Not everything has been *bad*, but a significant amount of questions remain unanswered.