Chelsea Fan Wonders... Was Ferguson Right All Along?

Sir Alex Ferguson wondered how much improvement we’d see from this current group of Chelsea players, considering the majority of the team had already hit the peak of their careers.

His comments were exaggerated in the press, leading to criticism from Ron Harris and John Terry, before Ferguson put a ban on interviews with the papers.

A few months in to the season, just how right was Ferguson in his analysis of Chelsea? Worryingly so, claims this Chelsea fan.

We’ve all heard the spiel by now – Luiz Felipe Scolari won’t be given any money for players in January – but whether or not Roman sticks to that if the current squad continues with its current form remains to be seen.

The suggestion at the minute seems to be that if Scolari insists on bringing in new recruits, he’ll have to fund it by selling off some of what he’s already got. Did Scolari know all this before he agreed to manage Chelsea, or is this penny-pinching as much of a surprise to him as it is to some of us?

I mean, let’s be honest, Chelsea spent a shed load of money putting together a side capable of winning back-to-back titles. Of course, it takes more than money to do that but would we have done it without having the financial muscle to compete on a level with the top clubs? I think the fact that we clearly didn’t have the resources to take the number one spot pre-Roman answers that one.

However, some elements of our Championship winning side have gone and there are others who are getting close to their sell-by dates and as good a squad as we have, Sir Alex Ferguson’s point at the start of the campaign about it being hard to see how far we could go with what we’d got, is starting to make a lot of sense as the season wears on.

Chelsea have already gone a couple of seasons as runners up to United in the League, finishing totally pot-less last season, and under the new non-spending regime, brought in only Jose Bosingwa and Deco in the summer. So whilst Bosingwa was a necessity rather than a luxury purchase, despite a blistering debut month from Deco, it’s starting to look like he might well not last the distance. And already this season, if our last few games are anything to go by, what we’re looking at is a jaded looking side with a lack of fight, energy or ideas.

Scolari seems unfazed with the lack of funds to address this problem though, stating “In January, if I have something to buy one player or another, OK. If I don’t have, it’s not a problem for me because I have a good squad, I like this squad. Maybe some clubs want one of my players and the time is for change. I give you this and you give me that.” Which is all very resourceful of the Chelsea boss, but isn’t this drastic cost-cutting going to leave us even further behind United, not just in May but in the long-term as well? Because for all John Terry’s straw-clutching earlier this year, suggesting United had reached their peak last season and we’d be the one’s raising the bar this time around, even the briefest look at some of their young talent so far shows that theory to be way off the mark.

So is Roman really happy to spend yet another season finishing behind United, or worse? Because like it or not, unless Chelsea seriously look at bringing some new, younger personnel in, of a high enough calibre, we could be in big trouble.

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