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New York Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
How should Chelsea's 2024–25 season be graded?
Chelsea's 2024–25 campaign undoubtedly ended on a high. They clinched their first major honour since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital takeover after defeating Real Betis 4-1 in the Europa Conference League final, and secured Champions League qualification for the first time under their ownership with a 1-0 win away at Nottingham Forest on the final day to finish fourth in the Premier League. Advertisement However, the season also had its lows. They were uncharacteristically knocked out of both the FA and Carabao Cups in the fourth round by Brighton and Newcastle, and won just two of 10 Premier League games between December 22 and February 22 — a stretch that included their heaviest loss of the season, a 3-0 defeat away at Brighton. So, how should their season be viewed overall? On the latest episode of Straight Outta Cobham, with help from listeners, Matt Davies-Adams and Liam Twomey discussed how Chelsea's 2024–25 season should be graded. A partial transcript has been edited for this article. The full episode is available on the Straight Outta Cobham feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Matt: We asked listeners to grade Chelsea's 2024-25 campaign, and lots of them got in touch with us. We had a couple of A grades from Yahoo and Andrew. Yahoo said, 'We achieved the Champions League and won a trophy, what more could we want in season one with Enzo Maresca?' Andrew said, 'We hit all the objectives, and unlike the last two seasons, have shown some sign of improvement.' Alan graded it a B and said, 'It would be higher if the football hadn't been such a struggle to watch at times and if we hadn't dropped five points against Ipswich. I can't argue with the end result, though, and stability will hopefully bring progress.' There were also a couple of slightly lower grades which came in. Four Aces said, 'I'd give it a C+, it was decent but it came down to the last game in the league and the second half in the Conference League final. It could have gone very differently.' GCP graded it a C- and said, 'Bare minimum given the level of investment and the relative standard of the league. I think the squad was good enough to get another 15 points. I want to see evidence of Maresca getting the best out of players other than Cucurella.' Advertisement B or B+ feels about right to me, Liam. Obviously, it could have been very different had things not gone the way they did right at the end of the campaign, but you can't say that Chelsea haven't achieved what they set out to at the start of the season. Albeit I like that caveat from Alan that the football was difficult to watch at times, and we'd be lying if we said it wasn't, wouldn't we? Liam: Yeah, but I think you also have to view it in the context of, 'Remember what the football was like under Graham Potter in that wasteland of a season two years ago?' That's still the personal low point for me in a decade of covering Chelsea. And then last year, I know people remember some of the thrilling, more goal-happy games under Pochettino, but there were also some pretty sterile possession games against low blocks. Admittedly, that wasn't a completely new thing this season, and yes they scored 13 more goals under Poch in 2023-24, but they also conceded 20 more goals. So when I look at the step forward this season, it's primarily defensive and primarily in terms of structure. And yes, that isn't going to get Maresca any brownie points with fans for entertainment, but I think it's an essential step for Chelsea to actually become a better team. Overall, I'd grade it a B. To me, a B is a solid pass, like job done… at least it was for me at GCSE. But certainly a B in the Conference League because that was par for the course, they had to win that. Even Real Betis, the best team that they faced, were significantly less talented and that showed in the final, but they still took care of business. And it looked for a while like they might not in the Premier League, even though the first half of the season lined up brilliantly for them. Until the turn of the year, there was no one making a play for second, never mind fourth. And I know Aston Villa and Newcastle finished strongly, and Man City finally got their act together to some degree and made it competitive. But Chelsea had this big advantage that they then blew away essentially in the space of two or three miserable months. But they pulled themselves together when they needed to, they found that grit, and they finished really strongly. So they deserve credit for that. But when you're looking at the season in totality with the way the campaign panned out, and looking at the other teams, I didn't think there was much of an excuse for Chelsea not to make the top five. So to finish fourth meant job done. Chelsea can move on now and look to strengthen this summer, look to have a good showing in the Club World Cup, and we'll see where it goes from there. But it was a solid and encouraging first season for Enzo Maresca. You can listen to full episodes of 'Straight Outta Cobham' for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. (Top Photo: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
New York Times
15-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Why Chelsea have no margin for error against Manchester United
The race for the Champions League spots is intensifying, with just four points separating third-placed Newcastle United from seventh-placed Nottingham Forest as we head into the penultimate week of the Premier League season. Chelsea occupy the final Champions League spot in fifth, level on points with Aston Villa and just one ahead of Forest, who they face on the final day. Advertisement On Friday, Enzo Maresca's side host Manchester United, whose focus will be on their upcoming Europa League final against Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday. On the latest episode of Straight Outta Cobham, Matt Davies-Adams was joined by Liam Twomey and Sam Parkin to discuss why Chelsea shouldn't be discouraged by their 2-0 loss against Newcastle and why Friday night's game is a must-win for Maresca's side. A partial transcript has been edited for this article. The full episode is available on the Straight Outta Cobham feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Matt Davies-Adams: It's important we don't get too carried away with the defeat last week. It was quite damaging, but Chelsea played OK in the second half with 10 men, and they had won five games on the bounce in all competitions before that. So it's not like it's completely fallen apart based on a defeat against a decent team on their own patch. Liam Twomey: Yeah, the sky hasn't completely fallen. The Nicolas Jackson red card against Newcastle is almost a bigger issue than the defeat — it was already conceivable that Chelsea would go to St James' Park and get a bit overwhelmed by the intensity. That can happen. But it's unfortunate that of Chelsea's top-five rivals, Newcastle are the ones who have the hardest game — away at Arsenal — and even though they're not quite over the line yet, they're very close to securing Champions League football next season. What we've seen in the last couple of weeks is that I don't think any of these teams are going to win out. I didn't feel that way when there were four or five games left, and that's not only because some of them were playing each other, but I still don't feel that way now. There will be more dropped points from all of them, and Manchester City finding a way to not beat Southampton last weekend was exhibit No 1. Advertisement Matt: Do you include Villa in that, because they've got Spurs at home and Man United away? Liam: On paper, you would think those should be the two easiest Premier League games you could wish for at this point. Spurs and United will have both eyes on the Europa League final, never mind one. But you never know. Villa have been very up and down this season, and they concede a lot of goals. And if you concede a lot of goals, on any given day you can shrink your margin of error to the point where you don't win. Chelsea experienced that a lot last season under Pochettino when they were just leaking goals at the defensive end. So it's still there for Chelsea, but they have to take care of business against United on Friday. I don't think they can afford to go to Nottingham Forest on the final day at a tangible disadvantage. But if they beat United at home, I suspect there will be a slip-up from someone else this weekend. And that would put Chelsea in a pretty good position heading into the final day. Matt: The old Opta supercomputer thinks Chelsea will finish fifth and gives them a 32.9 per cent chance of that. Villa have a 24.5 per cent chance and Forest have a 13.6 per cent chance. But Sam, there's no doubt about it — a win is the only acceptable result for Chelsea on Friday night. Sam Parkin: Yeah, I think so. Forest going to West Ham is a difficult game in the aftermath of the West Ham winning last time out, and maybe Graham Potter will do Chelsea a favour. But to alleviate the colossal pressure that would grow before a final day shootout, a win is a must. Then hopefully others will drop points this weekend before going into the final day. But there's no margin for error here. It wasn't a disaster losing at Newcastle, even though a point would have been brilliant. The red card completely changed the outcome, and the result was inevitable from that moment. But given that Chelsea are at home, and given how they performed against Liverpool, they're more than capable of getting the job done this weekend. And hopefully, when they get in the dressing room after the game, a few results will have gone their way. Matt: Let's hope Spurs can do Chelsea a favour then… You can listen to full episodes of Straight Outta Cobham free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
New York Times
27-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
120 years of Chelsea: The BlueCo takeover and the club's future
On the latest episode of Straight Outta Cobham — the last of our three-part series celebrating Chelsea's 120th anniversary — Matt Davies-Adams, Simon Johnson and Liam Twomey looked at the club in the present day since the BlueCo takeover in 2022. They analysed the current state of the Chelsea project, what success would look like over the next couple of years and the club's downturn in form since the arrival of the new owners at Stamford Bridge. Advertisement You can listen to the previous two episodes in the series here. A partial transcript has been edited for this article. The full episode is available on the Straight Outta Cobham feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Matt Davies-Adams: May 30 will mark three years since Todd Boehly & co. completed their takeover of Chelsea Football Club. Liam, where do you think we are in terms of the project? Do the owners believe it's on course? Liam Twomey: We still don't definitively know what this era is going to be. I know that will frustrate many fans who already think, 'It's on fire, it's all on fire'. There has been a lot of pain in the first two years, and everything the ownership have done in that time has been so aggressively future-focused that what is in front of us still hasn't assumed its final form yet. That's what many fans are still trying to come to terms with. Even as journalists, and Simon can speak on this as well, it's quite hard to know exactly what we're writing about because the way Chelsea are trying to operate is unlike any other club has ever tried to operate. Investing this much in players this young hasn't been done on this scale before, all while still trying to satisfy the demands of a win-now club by its modern history, and a win-now fan base. We know the early results have been underwhelming. And the ownership — and when I say the ownership, we have to parse that as well because it's Clearlake Capital running the club right now, and Todd Boehly is very much on the side, and that situation is not resolved — but Clearlake believe the plan is working in terms of the big picture. They believe things are moving in the right direction. I'm sure they would point to the league position as one of the metrics, and we'll see where Chelsea finish this year. But right now they're fourth, which would be an improvement on last year. Their players are getting older, closer to their primes, and there are more young players coming down the pipeline. So that's where it is. But I do find it very difficult to talk about this era of Chelsea because it's so changeable right now based on the way they're operating, so I don't feel comfortable passing judgment. It's obviously not a success right now but I don't feel comfortable calling it a complete failure either. Advertisement Matt: If it's not a success right now, what would make it a success over the next couple of years? Is it purely just qualifying for the Champions League a couple of seasons in a row, or are the ambitions a little loftier than that? Liam: The ambitions of the people running Chelsea are huge. They've marketed this to the players who have agreed to join as the most ambitious football project in the world. They want to be a world-class team that competes for the Premier League and the Champions League every year, and one that is in that inner circle of contenders. The way they're looking to try and do it sustainably is to have this conveyor belt of young talent, continually investing more than everyone else and identifying and recruiting the best young players in the world, then helping them fulfil their potential and retaining them at Chelsea. The difficulty is that we've seen clubs that win, and we've seen clubs that develop. But we haven't seen a club that can do both at an elite level, at scale. No one has tried to do this before, but that's what Chelsea are trying to do. They're trying to be an extremely expensive Brighton that wins the Champions League, essentially (laughs). It's a massive investment development project, but they're also trying to thread the needle of being a team that can be successful. At least on par with what we saw in the Roman Abramovich era, but without the boom and bust feel of the Abramovich era. We're obviously nowhere near there right now, but that's where they're trying to get to. Matt: Simon, you were covering the club in the Abramovich era, during the upheaval of the takeover, and now in this new era. Did you expect there to be such a downturn in form because of the upheaval the club had gone through? We forget the Champions League in 2021 maybe papered over some cracks. I remember Chelsea being called a deluxe cup team for a couple of years before the takeover happened. But even so, we've got to be surprised at just how dramatically things have fallen off in the last couple of years, haven't we? Advertisement Simon Johnson: I've said before there was a downturn in standards, just generally speaking, under the old regime anyway. I can imagine the outcry of people listening, and going, 'How can you say that? We won the Champions League'. It's seen as an understandable, magnificent achievement and rightly so. But Chelsea had gone their longest run without winning the title under Abramovich before he left, so there were signs of a downturn. But there are downturns, and there's this downturn. There's going from a shoo-in to qualify for the Champions League most years, let alone compete for silverware, to the first season being an absolute calamity. Arguably the worst season in Chelsea's history in terms of expectations, talent and money spent compared to the actual results delivered on the pitch. It was that bad. It was an absolute shambles of a football club. You had players who didn't have seats in the changing room and at team meetings — absolute bonkers. The one thing you would say about the new ownership and this era is that Chelsea are still the reigning champions of being the most bonkers football club to report on (laughs). They're the undisputed champions for the umpteenth year in a row in that regard. There's never a dull moment covering them. But when you think of the amount of money spent, we are in season three, and yes, they can point to being fourth as we speak, but it's a very unconvincing fourth. In one of the worst Premier League seasons in terms of the top four race that I can remember, it must be said. So it has been a disappointment, and I don't think anyone can say otherwise. There's no way the new owners bought this club thinking, 'We'll be in season three and still not sure if we're going to be a Champions League club in season four.' There's also disappointment because there's been no silverware. Last season, they did come awfully close. Mauricio Pochettino got Chelsea to a League Cup final and outplayed Liverpool until extra time, but they didn't take their chances, unlike Newcastle recently. They also outplayed Manchester City in the FA Cup semi-final, but again didn't take their chances. This season, they can still get that dream trophy and say, 'Chelsea have won it all,' with the Conference League. But Chelsea want to be at the top table, not dining at the kids' table and feeding off the scraps. I will say no one can accuse the owners of lacking ambition, that is the one thing I will defend them on. We've seen an extraordinary amount of money spent, but the question obviously has to be, 'Have they spent it wisely?' And the answer is a resounding 'no'. You can listen to full episodes of Straight Outta Cobham free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. (Top Photo: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
New York Times
24-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
How Abramovich's Chelsea takeover changed English football overnight
On the latest episode of Straight Outta Cobham — the second of a three-part series celebrating Chelsea's 120th anniversary — Matt Davies-Adams, Simon Johnson and Dominic Fifield look back at that seismic day on July 1, 2003, when an unknown Russian billionaire named Roman Abramovich took over Chelsea. Advertisement They discussed the significance of Abramovich's takeover and the impact it had on English and European football. A partial transcript has been edited for this article. The full episode is available on the Straight Outta Cobham feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Matt: In our previous episode, we charted the origins of the club and its very real history, success and heritage before the arrival of Roman Abramovich in 2003. Today is all about that fateful day, July 1, when everything changed. Simon, take us back to 2003. What was the climate like around the club in the build-up to the takeover? Simon: I was a few years into my 'illustrious' journalistic career and had been covering Chelsea for a few years. They were going through a little dip after Gianluca Vialli had gone and Claudio Ranieri took over. They were a top-six club trying to compete for major honours again. In 2002, they lost an FA Cup final to Arsenal, but everyone remembers the 2002-03 season for it being a season where they only signed one player, Quique de Lucas, who was a free agent because the financial problems of the club were so severe. It's been well documented when they played Liverpool on the final day of the season they needed a draw to finish above them and to qualify for the Champions League for the second time in their history. There was a lot of talk that, if Chelsea had lost that game, the circumstances would've been dire. Certainly, some key players would have been sold. You're talking about Frank Lampard, Chelsea's all-time leading scorer. John Terry, arguably Chelsea's greatest-ever captain, and certainly one of, if not the best centre-half in Chelsea and England's history. You can imagine what it would have looked like, but Chelsea went on to win 2-1. Even then, there was still a lot of uncertainty about what was going to happen to the club. They had qualified for the Champions League, but they were only in the qualifying round and hadn't made the group stages yet. There was still a lot of, 'What's going to happen? How are Chelsea going to sort this financial situation out?' Advertisement Then very unusually, a takeover happened where basically no one knew about it. It was completed within a few days of discussions and kept very much out of the media's attention. Essentially, the first anyone knew about it was once it was done. Dom: I'm just going to interject here Simon… is that you admitting you missed the story? Simon: Thankfully, I wasn't the only one, we were all together on this. But yes, of course, I missed it… and not for the first time (laughs). But suddenly Chelsea were dramatically transformed. They were always a back-page story, rightly or wrongly. Even though they weren't winning trophies, there was always a story with Chelsea. But the takeover in itself was front-page news because you suddenly had this mysterious Russian multi-billionaire buying the club. Matt: It was the headline on the BBC News at Ten that night, wasn't it? It was the main story. Simon: It was because it was so extraordinary. It excited everybody connected to the club because this was before any PSR or Financial Fair Play rules were brought in. What happened with Abramovich was a key factor in why these rules were brought in, because it rocked the elite that a club could suddenly have all this money to spend on players and rock the boat and the status quo. Chelsea were suddenly all over the back pages. 'They're going to sign this player, they're going to sign that player, they're going to get all these big internationals.' If you were a Chelsea fan, it was the most extraordinary summer transfer window you'll remember because it was the first. Suddenly, any player it felt was available, for sale and was gettable. They didn't get everybody, but they got some big names. Damien Duff had long been mooted to go elsewhere, but suddenly Chelsea blew everybody out of the water. Signing Claude Makelele from Real Madrid, a guy that was very much the player that made Madrid tick in a team of Galacticos. Chelsea didn't go on to win anything under Ranieri in that one season he had with all that money, but suddenly they were a totally different outfit altogether and everyone was worried. Advertisement Matt: Dom, what was your perspective on the Abramovich takeover from the outside looking in? Did it feel as seismic as it would become at the time, or was it just a point of interest in English football? Dom: It felt like a quirk initially. I was covering Liverpool and at the time, under Gerard Houllier, they thought they were on the verge of muscling in between Manchester United and Arsenal right at the top of the league. Then suddenly overnight, this mysterious figure appeared on the scene with Chelsea. That in itself wasn't necessarily alarming, but what was alarming was the £120million spent that summer, which was utterly unprecedented. Because it didn't go on one or two players, it went on five, six, seven, or eight proper quality players. That's when the established order — and Liverpool were part of the established order even though they may not have been winning league titles for a decade or longer — that's what shocked them. We had never seen this before. This person who had no affiliation with Chelsea Football Club suddenly appeared on the scene. We'd seen lots of businessmen over the years pour money into clubs, like Jack Walker (former owner) at Blackburn Rovers. But they'd all had an affinity with those clubs. They were local lads made good or were going back to their roots and reviving the club from their locality. Whereas this was a bloke with no ties to Chelsea at all. He was attracted by the opportunity and maybe the glitz and glamour Chelsea always had about them, with the King's Road swagger, etc. It didn't just transform Chelsea, it transformed English football overnight. Suddenly money was not an object, and that meant the others had to catch up. If they wanted to compete at the top, they had to spend as well and that took them out of their comfort zones. It meant people like Jack Walker and Sir John Hall (former Newcastle chairman) couldn't buy their local football teams anymore and expect to challenge at the top of the league. Because they just weren't in the same league as Roman Abramovich and Manchester United and the like. It also prompted Financial Fair Play as Simon mentioned. UEFA almost had to try and protect the established clubs and say, 'No, we're going to need some kind of restriction here because this is getting out of hand.' It knocked Arsenal off their perch, bearing in mind that was a team of Invincibles in 2003-04. Then the following year, Jose Mourinho and Abramovich did them, and Arsenal haven't won the league since. It was also a little shot across the bows for Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson. Suddenly they had a new challenger who wasn't Arsene Wenger and Arsenal. It was Chelsea with bottomless pockets who could do what they liked — astonishing scenes, really. You saw the rather star-studded-looking Russians sitting in the front row at the Anfield directors box that August afternoon in 2003 at his first game. One of the journalists tried to approach him at the end of the match to ask him what he felt after seeing Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink score the winner very late in a 2-1 win. But before he could even get the sentence out, bodyguards descended upon him and basically escorted him off the premises. We'd never seen this before. You could talk to the Liverpool directors as they left the directors box at Anfield, yet we couldn't get close to this fella. Advertisement That journalist did get a back-page lead out of it and a quote, which I've never worked out. We never would have thought Abramovich was going to affect English football at that point but, with the benefit of hindsight, he changed absolutely everything. You can listen to full episodes of Straight Outta Cobham free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
New York Times
20-03-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Chelsea's Stamford Bridge debut and how it set the tone for an ambitious, big-spending club
Chelsea Football Club was founded on March 10, 1905, at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher's Hook), located just across the road from the main entrance of Stamford Bridge. In 120 years, the club has claimed 51 major honours across its men's and women's teams, cementing its status as a European powerhouse. Advertisement Through all the club's triumphs, the legendary players who have come and gone, and the unforgettable matches, one thing has remained a constant — Chelsea's home of Stamford Bridge. On the latest episode of Straight Outta Cobham, the first of a three-part series celebrating the club's 120th anniversary, Matt Davies-Adams, Simon Johnson and Liam Twomey reflected on Chelsea's first league game at Stamford Bridge and discussed the significance of the club still playing at the ground where it all began. A partial transcript has been edited for this article. The full episode is available on the Straight Outta Cobham feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Matt: You will have seen on The Athletic Liam's piece charting the defining fixtures of each decade through the history of Chelsea FC. We've touched on a couple of these matches in passing, but let's run through them more thoroughly. We'll start way back in 1905. Chelsea 5 Hull City 1 at Stamford Bridge. Simon… what was the atmosphere like that day (laughs)? Simon: Hang on a minute… Matt: I'm joking (laughs). Liam, why is this one so special and why have you picked it? Liam: Well it was Chelsea's first league game at Stamford Bridge. It wasn't their first league game full stop because they began with two away matches against Stockport and Blackpool. But it was their first competitive outing at Stamford Bridge. The attendance was respectable given it was a brand new club in the Second Division of the Football League. There were around 6,000 people in attendance and Jimmy Windridge, who was signed for a fee of £190 from Small Heath, scored a hat-trick. They also had a tremendous Scottish forward called David Copeland. There are a lot of Scots in the early decades of Chelsea. The first secretary-manager, John Tait Robertson, was Scottish and he recruited extensively from north of the border. David Copeland had actually won the FA Cup with Tottenham Hotspur… whisper it quietly… before joining Chelsea and he also scored in that first game. But perhaps the most notable thing is that Willie 'Fatty' Foulke saved a penalty in that 5-1 victory against Hull. Advertisement The result signalled from the start — and it's important to note that Chelsea were one of five clubs added to the Football League that season, Hull City were another — that Chelsea weren't there just to make up the numbers. This was an ambitious club that was spending from day one and they would be in the conversation for promotion. They didn't go up that season, but they went up the next year. Chelsea were a club on the up from the very beginning. Matt: What's so special about us reflecting on that first league game at Stamford Bridge, Simon, is that's where Chelsea still are. Who knows what's going to happen in the future? But if Arsenal, Manchester City or Tottenham are looking back at their history, there would be a bit of wistfulness there, thinking, 'It's a shame we're not still at home'. And Chelsea are still where they began all those years ago. Simon: Yeah, and that's why the arguments about what to do with the stadium are so complex and sensitive. Chelsea have been there from the very start. The unusual thing about Chelsea's history is that the ground was there before the football club. It was used for athletics before it was decided to get a football team in there. Fulham were actually asked to play at Stamford Bridge before Chelsea existed and they said no. Hence this intense, heated rivalry was born (laughs). But one of the things every Chelsea fan you talk to loves is that traditional walk to the ground. Whether it be from Fulham Broadway station or through Brompton Cemetery, it's just that reassuring, comforting routine. The pubs that people love to go to and their favourite drinking spots before kick-off… maybe much needed after the final whistle, too. People love it and it all started with that opening game all those years ago in 1905. You can listen to full episodes of Straight Outta Cobham free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
