Season Review: Chelsea's failed season and the future ahead

Chelsea's new manager, Mauricio Pochettino, has a big task ahead of him: rebuilding a team that has been in disarray for the past year.

Dejected Chelsea players walk off the pitch after another routine loss. (Photo credit: Premierleague.com)

Going into the season, the objectives for Thomas Tuchel and Chelsea were easy to tell even from the lens of an outsider: compete for the league title, win one of the domestic cups, and have a great showing in the Champions League. None came to fruition.

The rumbles that followed the ouster of Roman Abramovic and the subsequent arrival of Todd Boehly and the consortium led to a series of ill-advised decisions, including the hasty dismissal of Tuchel and many of the top club officials.

For a club that won the Champions League in 2021, the expectations at Chelsea were high, and one would have thought the ruthlessness of the new owners would give birth to results.

But Graham Potter came with loads of bad results, and it got worse during the winter window.

For a club that lacked a free-scoring striker, the inability of the club to bring in one in the January window, despite spending a lot of money to hijack Mhykalo Mudryk from the jaws of the Gunners, adding Noni Madueke and a host of other players didn’t do much to help their cause.

On the pitch, Potter’s Chelsea failed to inspire confidence; Chelsea lost too many games for comfort, and the management took the hard decision again, but how did they arrive at Frank Lampard as an interim manager to replace Potter?

In their defence, they came in with a promise of stability in the dugout.

They claimed they wanted to embark on a project with the manager but couldn’t find patience with the former Brighton man, and they felt the best was to stick with a club legend that would appease the fans, which failed woefully.

Early exits in domestic cups meant they only had the Champions League to bank on, but Real Madrid didn’t waste time putting Lampard and Boehly where they belong, despite the latter's cheeky statement that the club would beat Madrid 3-0.

Chelsea could have handed the managerial job to a substantive manager when the club fired Potter.

The new manager would have used the rest of the league season as his transition period, and the pre-season would have integrated him into the favourites for next season.

Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong for Chelsea in the just-concluded season.

The club suffered heavily on the pitch; big-money signings failed to spark, and you can hardly nail one identity in the pattern of play.

Signing more players than they needed failed, and failing to sign an out-and-out striker failed too.

The players gave up way too early in games, and that ultimately saw them become the easiest opponent to have this season.

Looking forward to a new season, Chelsea must get it right in the transfer window.

The club must shed some players to accommodate new ones with zeal and a strong passion to deliver.

Mauricio Pochettino has been named as the long-term manager; he knows how to work with young players, so he should be of help.

The new season is filled with optimism, but Chelsea can’t afford to make the same mistakes again.

The 2022–2023 season has come and gone, and learning from the mistakes to springboard for a rewarding season is on the agenda for the club hierarchy as well as the new manager.

Season verdict: F

 

Rating metrics:

A: Excellent season

B+: Very good and successful season

B: Very good season

C: Average season

D: Poor season

E: Bad season

F: Failed season