Supporting a football team is more than just the games, everyone knows that. Wins are nice, trophies are even better. But if that was all that mattered, football would be no bigger than tennis or golf.
The reason football dominates every other sport in the headlines is because it’s just as much about the drama in between the games – ownership disasters, manager changes, scandals behind the scenes, transfers cancelled at the last minute, players selling crypto tokens or getting involved with romance scandals or even civil wars. We’ve seen it all.
Fans all over the world, from Nigeria to Malaysia to the King’s Road can’t resist tuning in to the latest episode in the drama. And Chelsea FC do the soap opera better than almost anyone. What other club could be put up for sale because of geopolitics in the way that we were?
And our current predicament is certainly bringing eyeballs on us – albeit not in a good way. The drama just never stops at Stamford Bridge. A glance at the best crypto odds on Chelsea FC show that even the bookies don’t seem to know whether we’re any good now.
Mauricio Pochettino seems to be an expert in ramping up the dramatic tension. He’s doing just enough to stay in a job, but not enough to guarantee he keeps it. The team shows just enough flashes to keep people interested (like getting to the Carabao Cup final) but also not enough to make it seem like there’s serious progress being made (like their total collapse in extra time of that final).
Where do things go next? It seems almost impossible that Pochettino gets the sack before the end of the season. It would be expensive, and such a bad look for the owners given they’ve already churned through a few coaches that we can’t see it happening.
Of course if he were to lose a string of games we can’t rule it out, but he’s getting enough performances and enough points to stay in a job until the end of the campaign at the very least.
Then some big decisions will have to be made. But we wouldn’t count on anything too major. If he steadies the ship and manages to squeeze us into the European places as well as continuing in the FA Cup, we can see those upstairs convincing themselves that he should get another season in charge. And who knows? Maybe with a new striker on board he really can make a significant improvement over the summer?
But before we get to that, we have to see him survive this tough run to come from now until the end of the season. It does feel like it’s a European spot or bust for the former Spurs boss.
Starting on Monday night against Newcastle, he needs wins, and fast. The postponement of the Arsenal game is great news for him as it pushes that potentially embarrassing defeat further into the future. If he can pull it off against the Magpies on Monday, then beat Leicester in the cup, he has 6 potential easy points up for grabs against Burnley and Sheffield United. So it’s not impossible that we head into mid-April in a solid position.
Sandwiched between those games is the home match against Manchester United. It’s very hard to say how they’ll be looking at that point – they’re almost as unpredictable as we are at this point. They’re vulnerable and demotivated and we’re at home. If we lose that, it would be another black mark against our manager’s name. But who knows – we could have one of our good days and win 3-0. This team has shown so little consistency this season that it’s almost impossible to predict.
All we know is that this soap opera is far from over – in fact, it might just be getting started.
