Disconnected FC: Chelsea fans look for something to hold
Chelsea fans are right to be disconnected from their club. The owners have done nearly everything imaginable to burn bridges at the Bridge.
This is as good a time as any to end my sabbatical from writing about Chelsea Football Club, and once again add my nonsense to the vast amounts of bile coursing around the internet. There are plenty of issues with my team to digest, cogitate and discuss with right now, the most pertinent being “my team.” I don’t recognise, nor do I feel a connection to, the team that have been a part of my life for over fifty years.
The Blues are a shambles from top to bottom. Supporting them through this period is not easy for a group of people spoiled by 20 years of Russian ownership. British government sanctions forced Roman Abramovich to effectively give away the football club he cared so passionately about. Abramovich always put Chelsea’s success ahead of financial gain.
Those currently at the helm of London’s finest have yet to gain their stripes. If Roman was propa, Clearlake, Blue Co., Todd Boehly, and Behdad Eghbali remain impropa and are at the heart of the disconnect.
Those new owners enacted wholesale changes that rent the essence of Chelsea. Aside from the management, medical, coaching and playing staff, the only things connecting the fan base, other than the fans themselves - and, let’s be honest, we are a fractious bunch - are the name of the club and Stamford Bridge. Oh, and perhaps the Tea Lady. The Bridge is up for redevelopment: who knows where that will go under the Americans. Would anyone be surprised if naming rights came into the conversation? And there’s every chance the Tea Lady will be retiring next year, assuming she hasn’t been replaced by a vending machine before then.
In a letter to the new management group, The Chelsea Supporters Trust (CST) expressed “significant concerns” about the direction the club is heading, citing a "disconnection felt by supporters towards the majority of the team, the manager, the club ownership, and the board." It’s a concern I share. The CST also claim that “the current feeling amongst Chelsea supporters in our opinion is at its lowest since the early 1980s.” For the first time in years, we have something to unite us, as those who live these games and see old age will ever say “We were here when we were shit.”
The CST are right, and “disconnection” sums it up. The club are unrecognisable from a year ago. Comparing last weekend’s fixture in Sheffield to the game a year previous, only Conor Gallagher, Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella started both games. The game last season was a 1-0 defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers, Super Frank’s first game back following Graham Potter’s sacking.
There are multiple reasons for this disengagement, most significantly, the new owners. Their recruitment strategy, to drill down on one realm of action.
If Chelsea are winning, there is no disconnect. But that’s not the case right now, and the nature of football demands fall guys.
The failure to connect between club and fan base is a two way street, though. Those in the stands and, worse, social media are hardly building bridges to and from the pitch. How connected to the supporters and club does Raheem Sterling feel as he’s booed during a game? The same goes for Mauricio Pochetino when he is patronisingly told he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Spoiler: he actually does, it’s just not working right now.
Ahead of the Everton game, Pochettino said he needs to talk the players up post-match, and there needs to be more positivity. That’s the crux. No matter how much anyone or everyone shouts and hollers, nothing is going to change regarding the club’s ownership. Likewise, adopting the successful, well trusted methods of the previous owner and ditching Poch in favour of someone picked by the current recruitment regime is unlikely to do the trick.
For myself, as a fan, I see no other path than to take the medicine currently being fed by Chelsea FC. I’ll look to the future and the good times that will hopefully return. For now, though, I am disconnected, bereft almost. However, there are small wins. The comeback win against Manchester United, was, if nothing else, exciting and the result magnificent. We reached the final of the League Cup and have a semifinal in the FA Cup to come.
Those little victories may not stretch far enough for some fans, given the recent successes. I sympathize with that. To say it’s a generational thing rather than a Chelsea thing harkens back to the halcyon days of Maurizio Sarri. Let’s not go there. Let’s just say my childhood days were simpler than those of my children. The governance of a microchip over a kickabout in the park has created a must-win culture. No one’s playing FIFA with the same carefree elan with which I ambled around chasing a football. It’s a natural progression that a digitised Cole Palmer must mirror his analogue counterpart. What’s the point in playing if you don’t win?
Chelsea are not simply in transition, they have been shut down, upgraded (or downgraded, take your pick), booted and rebooted again. Never has the word “project” been more appropriate to a football club, nor have any group of supporters, followers and fans been asked to trust the process more.
This current Chelsea squad is a long way off from the worst I have ever supported. Perhaps writing again will enable me to adopt more interest, allowing me to simply Trust. The. Process and regain a connection to the team I started supporting in 1972.
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