Thirteen points from their past six games, 15 goals scored, and Chelsea went into the weekend fourth in the Premier League table. The mood suddenly has changed. What crisis? Maybe the great disruptors had it right all along. Or at least maybe now that they seem set on disrupting each other and the focus has shifted to potential buyouts and leadership squabbles, Enzo Maresca has been able to get on with building a team.
Decisions that seemed baffling at the time can now be cast in a more favourable light. When Raheem Sterling released a statement seconds after the official announcement that he had been left out of Chelsea’s opening game of the season, it seemed indicative of the chaos at the club. If they had no need for him, why had he played such a prominent role in pre-season? And why, given their much-vaunted policy of buying young players on long contracts with a relatively low base wage but lucrative bonuses, was he on a reported £350,000 a week?
But as the dust clears, Maresca’s style becomes more apparent and those pre-season games can perhaps be seen as him testing whether Sterling could thrive in his system before concluding that he could not. In that regard, his decisiveness is laudable – even if that may seem harsh on Sterling, and does not explain his salary.
The point Maresca made at the start of the season was the squad he is working with is not unusual. Roughly a couple of players for each position, is equally reasonable – so long as you ignore the six players over 21 who remain at the club, are fit, and have not started a league game this season. Or the eight players who made 10 or more league appearances last season who have been loaned out. Or young potential such as Carney Chukwuemeka and Deivid Washington who have likewise yet to play.
That is pretty much an entire shadow squad for whom Chelsea have no use. Perhaps that was always part of the plan, to assemble 40 players and accept a third of them would end up being of no use, but it seems an extraordinarily callous way of operating, particularly when it leads to situations such as the sale of Conor Gallagher.
Any manager, of course, is entitled to decide a player does not fit his style of play. What was unseemly was the desperation to sell an academy product, to bring in that pure, golden unamortised profit, which has essentially meant Chelsea having to find a home for João Félix, a perfectly decent player, but not one they had any real desire to sign.
Maybe it is naive or old-fashioned to think of players as people, rather than as bundles of attributes, commodities to be traded. But they actually are people and are, in the case of those being bought and sold by Chelsea, often extremely young and perhaps vulnerable people.
Nicolas Jackson provides a case in point of why that should concern clubs, even beyond such quaint notions as a club having a duty of care to its employees. When he arrived in summer 2023 he had only just turned 22 and he had made only 16 league starts for Villarreal. He was talented, but lacked a certain finesse. In an ideal world, he would have been integrated slowly, a few substitute appearances, making the XI in the League Cup, maybe six to eight Premier League starts as cover or during a particularly hectic period, learning his trade, adapting to a new environment. Instead, he was expected to become Chelsea’s first-choice striker from the off, starting 31 league games last season.
And he was OK. In any normal world 14 goals in your first Premier League season would be a reasonable return. But in a normal world, a 22-year-old in his first season at Chelsea would have a senior centre-forward contributing 15-20 goals with maybe a couple of wide players or driving midfielders adding high single figures. Just as well, then, that Jackson had the remarkable Cole Palmer to pick up the slack with 22.
But even with his 14 goals, Jackson developed a reputation for rawness or wildness. He was not quite Timo Werner, but he certainly was not a player you would trust in a one-on-one. The paradox was his pace and movement often got him into one-on-one situations: like Werner, the very thing he was good at led to the situation in which he most conspicuously failed.
Jackson actually had only 80 shots last season; given roughly one in nine shots results in a goal, his return was actually better than average. The problem was that his misses tended to be eye-catching. But then what else should you expect from a player who had only previously started 16 league games?
This season, Jackson has already scored four goals from 18 shots. He wasted a couple of opportunities against Brighton, but the sense is that he is beginning to deliver on the promise that was apparent last season. There is a highly promising link-up developing between Palmer, Jackson and Noni Madueke.
It is early days but there have been glimmers, too, from Jadon Sancho. Christopher Nkunku is a dangerous substitute. Chelsea have players who can hit the space behind defenders who push high, and technical forwards who can unpick a low block. They have a lot of players.
Amid the chaos, a pattern is beginning to emerge. It is possible to believe there was a viable plan all along. But then you see Mykhailo Mudryk, another player promoted too soon, signed for a basic £62m after 12 starts in the Ukrainian league, short of confidence and trying desperately to come to terms with his own game, potential thrust too early into the light by the Chelsea project.
Jackson seems to have come through his trials and Palmer is an extraordinary talent. Spend enough money on enough players, appoint a coach with a vision, and the chances are that a reasonable team might emerge. But there is a human cost, not just in the kids exposed too soon but also the ghost squad. And more generally than that, this feels a very crude lesson in capitalism; splurge enough cash and ultimately you will get away with it.
