A letter to Carlo Ancelotti

Hello Carlo Sir,

I think it is safe to admit that it is officially a crises at Chelsea. In this letter I want to discuss with you the reasons for this crises. Let me say this upfront that I normally don’t like to blame managers for defeats but this time around you have to shoulder a lot of blame. According to me there are the 3 pivotal reasons for our downfall this season:

Squad Management.
Last summer we let lot of experienced (old) players go and did not sign enough. We had a squad of just 19 senior players. I thought this was done to promote youngsters. It was more than obvious that we don’t have enough strength in depth. But I (like most Chelsea fans) was still fine with it. I knew that few injuries might do us in. But there was still that incentive of watching young players come through the rank. I don’t mind having one trophy-less season if it means some good young players make the successful first team transition and become first team regulars. But that has just not happened. Yes, lot of young players now train with the first team (which is a great thing) and are often on the bench, but they have not played nearly enough games to gain any confidence. The likes of Kakuta, Sturrige, VanHolt, Bruma, McEachran etc have hardly started any games. This means that Drogba, Malouda, ACole, JT etc have to play day in and day out and are visibly fatigued. So right now we are neither here nor there. We are not winning any games due to tired and fatigued first team players. And we are not promoting youngsters either. I was dejected as a wet hen when I saw Ferreria playing as CB against Sunderland with Bruma on bench. And to add to my fury we are thinking of signing some big name players this Jan. That just puts our whole summer initiative of promoting youngsters into dumpster. Sir, I am really sorry to say this but you have got your squad management horribly wrong !! You had more than an year with all the youngsters. You should have known if they are ready to start some first team games and prove as able backups. And if you did not have confidence in the youngsters then you should have signed in summer itself. Signing big name players now just underlines the lack of planning you had for the squad.

Flexibility.
When you started your stint at Chelsea, you tried to bring in your diamond formation from AC Milan and played Lampard at the tip of the diamond. Just after a few games you saw that the formation is not really working for this set of players and you changed it back to 4-3-3, the favored formation at Chelsea. I was very impressed with that. To have a manager who sees what he is doing wrong and corrects himself is an absolute asset to have. But why are you not showing that same flexibility now? You refuse to change the 4-3-3 formation when it is clearly not working right now. Mikel is not in any kind of form and Essien is just not a natural CDM. So to have that extra defensive cover is, to some extent, curbing our attacking play and we still continue to make defensive errors. So that CDM is becoming a liability because we don’t have the right player in that position right now. One option you have is to go with a good old 4-4-2 or something of that sorts. Have Lampard, Essien, Malouda, Kakuta/Kalou in midfield (Malouda and Kalou/Kakuta as wingers) and have 2 up front. To me, one thing that has stuck out like a sore thumb in recent games is the lack of players in the box to attack crosses. Lot of times our getaway attacking strategy is to give ball wide to the likes of Bosingwa, Malouda, ACole and have them put in a cross. I don’t mind that at all. But almost every time we only have one and at the most 2 players in the box to attack those crosses. That is just not good enough when you are trying to win games coming from behind. So 4-4-2 like formation will give us that extra man in the box which might make a difference when crosses come in. These are some really simple football strategies and I am surprised that we are not working on them. I am really disappointed with the lack of flexibility you have shown this season.

Luck is a not an angel.
One place where you cannot do much is the luck factor. We have had some absolutely horrible luck in the last few games. If this was earlier in the season then we would definitely have won against Birmingham, NewCastle, Spurs, Villa, Wolves (netting us 12 points more and taking us to the top of the table). But as much as we are playing badly, luck is also not going our way at all. Considering the ball possession and total shots we had, we really should have got better results in these games. But I am a strong believer in Murphy’s law for a reason. Only when players lose form and have injuries, you will have the worst luck of the season.

It is quite clear that title dreams are now all but over. More important is finishing in the top 4 which is by no means is a given. Over next month or so we will get some of our injured players back and hopefully that will spur things up. I hope you show a little more flexibility and that combined with better luck (which I believe will change from the next game) things will be back on track, I am sure!

Regards,
A hopeful Blue!