Stability is key to being a great team in football. Just look at some of the best teams in world football now, with clubs like Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal paying the dividends for sticking with and backing their managers for long periods.
On the other end of the spectrum, several teams like Tottenham and Leeds have fallen victim to a revolving door of coaches, board members and players.
However, if you want to find the biggest example of a club falling victim to instability, look no further than the 2022/23 season of Chelsea's.
Just two years ago, for the second time, Chelsea were Champions of Europe, featuring some of Europe's best players, including Jorginho, N'Golo Kante and Mason Mount, who after breaking out the season prior, was awarded Chelsea Player of the Year, and was one of the best English players.
The team was overseen by the mastermind Thomas Tuchel, who despite only taking control of Chelsea midway through the season, was able to turn their middling season around, leading them to victories against Real Madrid, and Manchester City in the final. Domestically, he led Chelsea through to the FA Cup Final, where they were beaten by Leicester City, and helped the London team finish a respectable fourth in the Premier League.
With a core of world-class players, and one of Europe's best managers, the future of Chelsea looked very promising.
However, fast forward just years later, and any promise that Chelsea showed is now completely gone.
Over the course of this article, we will look at how Chelsea grew to be one of England's and Europe's most elite teams, before declining so dramatically that not even the most pessimistic of fans could've hardly predicted a year ago.
The rise
Historically speaking, Chelsea had a forgettable history, often being overlooked for clubs like Liverpool and London rivals Arsenal.
However, this changed when the club was sold to Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who oversaw Chelsea's most successful era, where the club became the envy of other English teams, winning 5 Premier League titles, and being crowned the champions of the UEFA Champions League twice - most recently in 2021 under German coach Thomas Tuchel
The Roman Abramovich era would soon be bought to an abrupt halt. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022 would see the Russian oligarch come under heavy sanctions, forcing him to put Chelsea for sale.
Boehly Ball
Chelsea would be purchased by a group of investors, led by Todd Boehly in May 2022. Boehly had made a name for himself by co-owning Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers, who won the championship in 2020. Boehly would instantaneously begin spending big, cementing Chelsea's place as Europe's highest-spending club for the 2022 summer transfer window.
However, despite the new signings, Chelsea made a slow start to the 2022/23 season, which saw their new signings struggle to make a sizeable impact.
Chelsea's additions of Aubameyang and Sterling, along with their already existing options in Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech and Kai Havertz did little to improve their goalscoring record, while their defense was uncharacteristically leaky.
This led to several uninspiring performances by The Blues, leading to Tuchel getting sacked following a defeat to Croatian outfit Dinamo Zagreb.
More chaos
Then Brighton boss Graham Potter would succeed Tuchel, in an exciting appointment by Chelsea, seeing how he overachieved with the Seagulls. However, little improvements were seen in the results. With Chelsea slipping to 10th place by the start of the 2022 winter transfer window, an unfamiliar position to be in for the Chelsea faithful, Todd Boehly decided it was time to start on a clean slate.
In what can only be described as "ludicrous" by onlookers, Chelsea outspent the entirety of the Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A.
Boehly wasted no time bringing in 8 new players into Stamford Bridge, including paying a British transfer record fee for Enzo Fernandez, who was fresh after being awarded the Best Young Player Award in the 2022 World Cup and Mykhailo Mudryk who looked destined to join Chelsea's city rivals Arsenal, before Chelsea hijacked the deal in the eleventh hour.
Despite the headlines that Chelsea was making, many of these moves were viewed as ill-advised, especially given how this frenzied transfer window took place in the winter transfer window, a time in which clubs are generally inactive, making little to no acquisitions.
Many wondered how big of a say Graham Potter had in the transfer decisions, if any. The sheer amount of players Chelsea bought meant that not all of the new players could be registered to represent Chelsea in the Champions League.
The transfers didn't reflect in the team's fortunes, as Chelsea went winless throughout February, and scored only once in the entire month.
Many began doubting Potter's ability as an elite-level manager, with reports from The Athletic even detailing how many Chelsea players had become disillusioned under Potter, frequently calling him names behind his back.
He was given the boot after a 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa - the 11th such result in the 31 games he managed. With less than a 40% win rate, Potter would have the lowest points per game of any Chelsea manager.
Despite the club hiring former manager Frank Lampard, the damage was done. Chelsea, a club that had Champions League aspirations at the beginning of the season, were now languishing in 11th place.
Somehow, with seemingly almost no way to go but up, the West Londoners managed to find themselves in even worse form under Lampard, which, for a brief moment even saw the club flirting with relegation. Lampard's win percentage of a measly 9% was the lowest among managers who had managed Chelsea for more than 3 games.
Chelsea ended their miserable 2022/23 in 12th place. It was the first time in 27 years that the Blues didn't finish in the top half of the table.
It was reported by The Athletic that the number of players Chelsea had bought meant that the dressing room had to be redone, forcing some to change outside the dressing room for some time. Team meetings saw some players be forced to sit on the floor due to the high amount of players.
A clean slate
In the offseason, Chelsea have been busy offloading players deemed unnecessary to their plans. Edouard Mendy, Kalidou Koulibaly and N'Golo Kante all joined the Saudi Arabian player exodus, while Kai Havertz would headline a long list of players departing Stamford Bridge this summer.
The departures have seen all but 3 players from the starting XI that won the Champions League in 2021 leave the club, namely Ben Chilwell, Reece James and Thiago Silva.
It remains to be seen how involved Boehly will be in key decisions regarding Chelsea, given his lack of success in the transfer market, with Enzo Fernandez arguably being the sole exception. Despite many of their recruits being young players, little promise has been seen, for example, Mudryk, who has failed to score a single goal in the Premier League so far.
Even more painful for Blues fans will be seeing how players like Andreas Christensen and Antonio Rudiger, who were sold under Boehly have experienced success in the first season away from Stamford Bridge.
Boehly is also famous for making reckless decisions, such as sacking Tuchel, a manager who is one of Europe's elite and oversaw one of Chelsea's more recent successful eras, or overpaying for players like Marc Cucurella and Mykhailo Mudryk, both of whom have given fans little to be excited about so far.
Boehly has also drawn laughter from rival fans numerous times, such as when he presented Tuchel with plans for a 4-4-3 formation, or when he suggested that the Premier League introduce an all-stars game. He also came under criticism for falsely saying that Kevin de Bruyne and Mohammed Salah are graduates of Chelsea's highly reputed academy.
A new coach
With a bloated squad, an owner that many consider to be the worst in the Premier League and players who regret committing their futures to Chelsea, it's no wonder that managers like Jose Mourinho and Julian Nagelsmann rejected the opportunity to take over the West Londonders hot seat this summer.
In the end, Chelsea settled for Mauricio Pochettino, a manager who had been without a club for nearly a year.
While Pochettino may not bring Chelsea fans the nostalgia that Mourinho would have, or the shine of a young and upcoming coach in Nagelsmann, he does bring to the table the unique skill of being able to rebuild clubs, as seen with his tenure at Espanyol, Southampton and Tottenham, which is exactly what the Blues need.
His stint at Tottenham saw his main attackers - Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min - all become the division's best players. Chelsea fans will be hoping he would be able to replicate the same at Stamford Bridge, as a worrying trend has emerged where most attacking players signed by Chelsea, such as Andriy Shevchenko, Fernando Torres, Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner, have all failed to replicate their best form in a Chelsea kit.
So far, the signs look encouraging with forwards Christopher Nkunku and Nicolas Jackson all looking right at home during their preseason friendlies, although the former looks to be out for the start of the season, owing to an injury. Looking at the bigger picture, Chelsea was unbeaten in their first preseason under Pochettino, while their player exodus hasn't slowed down with Hakim Ziyech and Romelu Lukaku being linked with moves away from the club.
The future
There are still several questions that linger over Chelsea's future. Will Chelsea's forwards continue to build on their promise and form a scary attacking unit, or were the last few weeks a blip? Will Pochettino be able to deliver Chelsea the trophies that a club of Chelsea's stature demand, or will his struggles to win trophies fail to transform their team? Will Boehly continue the new hands-off approach that he adopted this summer, or will he continue making erratic transfer decisions that negatively impact the team?
Chelsea have not qualified for any European tournament for the upcoming season, which could prove to be a blessing in disguise, as this will allow them to focus on the Premier League and domestic competitions.
I believe Chelsea could - at least partially - return to normalcy in the 2023/24 season. While the squad is still a far cry from being Chelsea's best-ever team, there still are players such as Ben Chilwell, Christopher Nkunku, and Reece James who look to provide the light at the end of the tunnel. Meanwhile, Levi Colwill and Lewis Hall look set to join a long list of Cobham graduates-turned stars this season.
I predict Chelsea to make a return to European competitions - the Europa League to be more specific, while I see the club bowing out of the FA Cup in the Fifth Round, and finishing as semi-finalists in the EFL Cup.
As Chelsea looks to fight their way out of unfamiliar waters, it goes without saying that the 2023/24 season will be one of the most crucial seasons in all of Chelsea's history. This season could be looked upon as the one in which Chelsea took a step in the right direction, establishing a foundation of success to build on, with Pochettino being the centre stone to a new era of Chelsea dominance, or if this season will be the first of many seasons in which the Chelsea faithful will be sentenced to watch their beloved team stuck in mediocrity.
