Chelsea fans go retro: United and optimistic

Whether it's because of the players and managers who were sent out or those who were brought in, Chelsea fans (and supporters) are at peace with each other for the first time in years.

With Chelsea’s preseason behind us, we can safely make explicit the hope and enthusiasm the Blues engendered during their time across the Pond, as they accomplished a feat that seemed as much a part of club history as many of my touchpoints here and elsewhere. Over an American fortnight and a half, the intra-fan rivalries have been abandoned.

OMG, that can’t be right. With the catalysts to any confrontation gone, the - one more last time, with feeling - Cultists and Yer Da’s are (re)united.

We saw signs of a coming together at the start of last season, with Champions League winning Thomas Tuchel getting fired after just seven games in favour of Graham Potter (who?). Post Maurizio Sarri, Jorginho and Frank Lampard, Potter’s Chelsea were so poor that no one could argue. Not with the results, not with their assessments, not with each other. In time, not even the Chelsea hierarchy could tolerate the dross. The new ownership checked the playbook and hit the “Install Chelsea Legend” button and drafted Super Frank back in.

But the club were hopeless beyond any manager’s ability to salvage. Paul McCartney and John Lennon at their very best would not have been able to get a tune out of that over-staffed Chelsea squad. The season was woeful, from a preseason that stretched no one beyond lethargy to Lampard’s first six games back in charge, all losses, to the final games that put Lampard’s chances of sitting in another coaching dug out in severe jeopardy.

It was an outrage, but by then we were all numb to it.

Even for a club that refuses to have a normal, steady, sedate season, this was a strange one. Set aside the managerial changes, and “transition” still doesn’t begin to describe the full on, club-wide metamorphosis that even now is still not over.

Despite his history at Tottenham Hotspur, Mauricio Pochettino has been accepted without question. This is a significant positive, not to be underappreciated. You have to go back a few seasons to remember all factions of the club singing from the same hymnal. Further, Lampard’s “son” Mason Mount has gone. While we can all be united in wishing him the best, except when playing Chelsea, the final player causing friction will no longer split social media.

If Twitter (Editor’s note: X) is anything to go by - and we all know it is - Chelsea’s games in the USA attracted views from folks in the UK staying up way beyond their bedtimes. Supporters broke digital bread with fans, and peace appeared to settle over the Bridge.

It’s all set to be a harmonious, happy camp in SW6 moving forward and the future looks bright with Pochettino in the hot seat.

With that in mind, reckoning up the ages of this summer’s buys so far, the future really means what it says on the tin. You’d really have to squint to see it. But there always remains that one fissure, that one point of vulnerability, instability or disequilibrium, perhaps that one player who could drift or sway or make one one-touch backward pass too many, that gives hope for recurrence of friction in the fan base.

“Aside from Silva, where the hell are the experienced players?” moaned the old man.

“A Casadei-Santos pivot as cover for Enzo-Caicedo would be really cool,” was all the yoof had.

Is that human nature, or simply a Chelsea thing?

This seed of intra-fan unity is barely sprouting, and perhaps it will never flourish along the King’s Road. But in the wacky world of Chelsea Football Club, it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on as the season progresses.

If we can’t get that going, at least we can all hate Brighton and Hove Albion.

Photo credit: theodoritsis / Flickr, under CC BY 2.0.