Dark Times Ahead For Chelsea Football Fans
On the surface, everything looks rosy for Chelsea. They are looking excellent whilst sitting at the top of the league and as always dependable players like John Terry and Frank Lampard are performing in their usual stellar way. But all is not what it seems. They are currently looking to have the transfer embargo, preventing them from signing any new players until 2011, lifted under appeal. This could be vital for maintaining their place at the top of footballs tree. Currently the workings behind the scenes are possibly every bit as important as the on the pitch results.
Many of my football betting tips look for value and quite often Chelsea do not offer value because they are such heavy favourites in their games. This could change in the near future. Whilst Chelsea have enjoyed sustained success with a settled team, but you cannot help but notice that the team has aged together. Terry, Lampard, Ashley Cole, Joe Cole, Ballack, Drogba, Anelka and Cech are all approaching or over 30. It is important for the club to re-build gradually, in the way Manchester United have done with the acquisition of players like Fabio, Machida, Rafael, Anderson and Nani. Whilst their players like Scholes, Giggs and Ferdinand are still playing well, the youngsters continue to learn for when they must step up to the first team. Chelsea, it appears, have a large gap between their reserve team and their first team.
Bringing in the young players now would be vital to replace the current stars further down the road. At some point in the future Chelsea will start to feel the age of their players and begin losing to teams they should be beating. The transfer ban suffocates their transition which would be gradual now, but pick up pace as time goes by. Certainly by 2011 you would have expected a number of new faces to begin learning their trade in anticipation of the ageing stars moving on.
Rio Ferdinand of Manchester United is currently on the receiving end of bad press because of a loss of form. Suddenly columnists are asking whether he is “past it”. Father time can catch up with a player quickly. If Chelsea’s stars like Terry, Lampard et al all suddenly suffer a loss of form they simply do not have the players capable of adequately replacing their quality. With respect to Sturridge, Mancienne and Kakuta they are not nearly as established as Man Utd or Arsenals reserve players. Without the transfer ban being lifted so Ancelotti can address this problem dark times could be ahead for the club.
Fortunately Chelsea are bankrolled by the ever deep and generous pockets of Roman Abramovich. We can assume he will provide the necessary funds to obtain the next generation of stars for Chelsea, but a ban could be devastating as the right players are not always available and there is always the danger of buying in haste. Perhaps some of the ageing stars would have been sold to make way for new talent, but surely Ancelotti cannot afford to part with players now as replacements cannot be purchased. When the transfer embargo is finally lifted, the value of the current squad will have diminished because of their increasing age. When you consider the ramifications of the ban, it looks vital to Chelsea as a Premiership power to avoid it at all costs. Think of the strengthening Manchester City will do in the meantime? Chelsea may be well behind when the dust settles on their transfer ban.
Some will argue that what goes around comes around as Chelsea was the team that started the financial madness of liberally spending billionaires inflating player’s value with their high levels of spending. Chelsea fans will be worried, and rightly so. They may have to win the Premiership title this season as it may be their last chance at it for some time, the same goes for the champion’s league. Sports betting fans may get more betting tips
favouring an upset of Chelsea’s worldly weary squad if they are stopped from improving it.
By Malcolm Clarke
