Risk-averse Chelsea find themselves at a crossroads
Stamford Bridge’s must-win mentality could be replaced by a riskier youthfriendly regime
12 months left on his deal at the end of the season and Hazard will have two years remaining, with Real Madrid eyeing up a summer bid.
But Courtois and Hazard are not the only players whose futures are uncertain. Cesc Fabregas, Pedro, Gary Cahill, David Luiz and January signing Olivier Giroud will have only one year remaining on their contracts, with the club so far unwilling to offer any more than 12-month extensions to players aged 30 or over.
Chelsea will not make any decisions on striker Michy Batshuayi or defender Kurt Zouma, who are on loan at Borussia Dortmund and Stoke City respectively, until the managerial situation is resolved.
But neither wants to return to Chelsea to go back to the substitutes’ bench, leaving Chelsea in a difficult position should they want them to boost the squad for a gruelling Europa League campaign.
Conte remains adamant he will not quit Chelsea and give up a potential £9million pay-off, which leaves the club having to sack him and risk picking up the full bill if he does not walk straight into a job.
But to land a big new role, Conte needs to avoid an end-of-season meltdown at Stamford Bridge that would damage his legacy. Despite him winning the league last season, potential suitors are questioning whether his negativity, off and on the pitch, has been to blame for this season’s downturn.
Should Abramovich decide to replace Conte, he will look for a young and dynamic successor. Luis Enrique and Thomas Tuchel are among the candidates.
Despite the fact they will have been without a technical director for six months by the end of the season, Chelsea are unlikely to make an appointment before the summer.
Towards the end of last season, Antonio Conte confided to staff at Chelsea that if he was to select his side based on training sessions, Ruben Loftus-cheek would be the first name on the team-sheet. Instead, Loftus-cheek made four brief substitute appearances – the earliest he came on was the 82nd minute – in the final months of that season and has spent this campaign on loan at Crystal Palace.
Chelsea won the Premier League title but Conte felt he could not risk playing Loftus-cheek or Ola Aina, another youngster who was flying in training and who made just one appearance, as a 75thminute substitute. Aina is also out on loan, at Hull City, this term, while it still pains some at the club that Nathaniel Chalobah was sold to Watford. The midfielder should be in the Chelsea team.
It is a situation that goes to the heart of Chelsea, the managers they employ and the environment that has been created at the club. They want to win. And they want to win right now and, of course, have proved to be extremely good at that over the years. Their model has worked. But it also makes it very difficult for any manager to say he is going to risk players for a particular game or feel confident enough, and stay long enough, to think, ‘OK, I am not going to be fired if I lose the next two matches’.
So, with Conte expected to leave at the end of this season, in that familiar boom-and-bust cycle of Chelsea managers, it feels like the club have reached a crossroads. In fact, it could be their biggest summer since Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003 and changed the landscape of English – and European – football.
Gianluca Vialli, in his role as a pundit for Sky Italia, let the cat out of the bag on Conte’s future when he declared, after the home loss against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday which effectively ended Chelsea’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions League: “Conte can’t wait to leave Chelsea. He can’t stand that they sell or buy players without consulting him. The truth is, Chelsea would like a manager who is more of a club man.”
Whether that statement is quite true is debatable but Vialli is good friends with Conte.
So, Conte will go. The expectation is that it will be by mutual consent or, in other words, Chelsea are hoping not to sack him and have to pay up the final year of his contract. But both sides will inevitably move on and Conte will complain about a lack of spending, a lack of backing as he departs.
Chelsea have huge decisions to make and not just about the head coach. They are yet to replace Michael Emenalo, who quit as technical director to take up a similar role at Monaco, and have a number of senior players – including Thibaut Courtois, Cesc Fabregas, David Luiz, Gary Cahill and Pedro – going into the final year of their contracts next season.
What Chelsea do will indicate the direction the club are heading in. It is clear that under the stewardship of Marina Granovskaia, who runs the club for Abramovich, Chelsea do not intend to get into a spending race with the Manchester clubs. It is a far tighter ship these days, and has been for some time, and those supporters frustrated with Granovskaia over that should bear in mind she is an employee. It is not her policy but Abramovich’s.
It is also clear, from what is said internally, that there is a desire to bring through some of the young players, and that the owner craves “an English spine” to his team. One can follow on from the other but they need to be aligned. It is, after all, impossible that such a hugely-resourced academy as Chelsea’s cannot have produced more first-team players.
But for that to happen is going to take a sea change, it is going to take time, patience and a different kind of coach, but also for Chelsea to take stock and have a proper evaluation; to take a different outlook.
There is no doubt that a manager such as Mauricio Pochettino would fit the bill perfectly but there is little chance of him being lured away from Spurs. At the same time, Chelsea fans will argue that, while they have enjoyed extraordinary success, with 14 major trophies – five Premier League titles, a Champions League, a Europa League, four FA Cups and three League Cups – since Abramovich bought the club, they should hardly be looking to Spurs, with their solitary League Cup, and Pochettino, who is yet to win anything, as the way forward.
But it is about the here and now, and the future, and the direction of travel, and few would argue that Spurs are not ahead of Chelsea as things stand and moving at a greater speed. They have also done so by having the courage to bring those young players through.
Again, Chelsea will argue that the pressure and weight of expectation is far less at Spurs and that has undoubtedly been the case and helped them on their way. But, crucially, there is a desire from within Stamford Bridge to end the sense of chaos and destruction that inevitably appears to eventually envelop every manager and affect the way he works.
But what comes first in this particular chicken-and-egg situation? Will Chelsea have the strength of their convictions and play a longer game? Are they prepared to risk not being title contenders next season, for example, by giving youth its head? The clue will be not just the degree of patience afforded to their next head coach but – more immediately – what kind of coach they decide to employ in the first place.
It is clear Chelsea do not intend to get into a spending race with the two Manchester clubs