Blue Champions - Chelsea Fan Blog

What is a good season? The answer to this question would vary from club to club, depending on various factors especially their ambitions, their investment and their history. As far as Chelsea is concerned, the club has the ambition, heavy amount of investment has gone into the club and the history of scarce success means there is the hunger as well.

Ranieri came second in premier league and lost the champions league semi finals and lost his job. Jose won two historic premier league titles which kept him on the job despite European failures. When he could not win neither in his third season, he lost his job too. In short, an FA Cup and a League Cup in a season is not just good enough for Chelsea.

Just because Roman has invested truckloads of cash, he can’t expect us to win the title every season. We have two, if not three, rivals which have enough quality in players and management to win the title. League title is tougher in England than anywhere else in Europe. By simple average, if we win three titles in a decade that should be seen as good. But, is Roman satisfied with ‘good’? I strongly believe that money can’t buy success, but as a shrewd businessman, Roman would expect some return on heavy investment. For Chelsea to break even, they should win more titles and increase the fan base. Getting a strong fan base is not guarantee to success but it could be true the other way round. That’s why I’m of the opinion that Roman does not care too much about the playing style. Or let me say, he cares about the playing style as much as I do. I’m not too particular. I want us to win, if we win nicely, thanks very much.

What would be reasonable success for Chelsea? Hundreds of millions have been invested in Chelsea. We have a group of top players. Roman believes we have a top manager. Chelsea’s training facilities are not only world class but also state of the art. Now, what should Roman expect? More success, right? I don’t think he would care about second places and runner-ups. There are champions and there are losers. It is all very romantic to say that we lost the game but we won the hearts but that’s a consolation, isn’t it? Given a choice, what would like to win, game or hearts? For someone who has always succeeded in everything all through his life, success must be an obsession.

In Chelsea, I believe that winning a domestic competition does not improve your situation but losing puts you in a fix. Admit it, since Roman arrived, Chelsea has always taken the League Cup and FA Cup more seriously than our rivals have. Why is that so? Why can’t we have a good number of youth/reserve players playing in these competitions trying out the so-called ‘champagne football’? Even against league two oppositions, we do field our 100k a week players. The reason is, Chelsea needs success, very badly. Developing youth players must be more of a medium to long term goal for Roman. The short term requirement is success, more and more of it. The domestic competitions are something, we simply can’t afford to lose, given the importance and efforts we attach to those. That’s why a defeat is taken more seriously than a victory here.

Then comes champions league. Widely reported as something Roman really craves for. I always believe that winning the champions league is a bit easier than the league title. I can’t deny the fact that we would be facing more than three top quality rivals, unlike the premier league. Still, it’s only span over 6 group league matches and 7 more matches of real importance. Let’s not talk about the possibility of a group league elimination. That’s just unthinkable in the current circumstances. Once you progress from the group league, all you need to do is to play well in 7 (2 pre-quarters, 2 quarters, 2 semis and a final) matches. One bad day can knock you off while in premier league you can always stage a recovery. May be this is a reason why champions league is becoming more and more important than the league title, for Chelsea. Easier to achieve (than the league title) and wider reach in terms of new fan base and publicity.

The way I understand, to put it simply, (i) winning domesic cups will not get you anything but losing is bad (ii) winning premier league is great, it is not the most wanted (for players yes, for management may not be) (iii) champions league is easier to get than premier league, and shoots up Chelsea’s market value quickly and Chelsea have never won the champions league. Therefore, whether it is a good season or not will depend only on winning either the league title or champions league.

In this regard, are we having a successful season? Certainly I can’t say no, because we are still in contention for both premier league and champions league. We are little off pace in the league title race but if we manage to beat both Arsenal and Man Utd at Stamford Bridge, we can expect a photo finish.