Chelsea owners BlueCo face moment of reckoning amid fan backlash
Hosting Tottenham head coach Roberto de Zerbi in Chelsea’s directors’ box on Monday, ostensibly to scout future rivals, went down badly with some sections of the fanbase.
De Zerbi has a long-standing relationship with Paul Winstanley and Sam Jewell since their time at Brighton, but Chelsea fans want their London rivals to be relegated; especially because of the possibility of them harming themselves in a league game at Stamford Bridge in two weeks’ time.
This was just one of many missteps that led to poor results, leaving fans feeling misunderstood and ignored.
Since the Abramovich era, almost every player on the men’s team, senior managers and most of the behind-the-scenes football staff have been replaced.
Mauricio Pochettino, Chelsea’s second head coach under BlueCo, told the Overlap podcast that he left the club because they did not fit his “vision”. He emphasized that the Blues prefer to look at data rather than human connection and “emotion.”
His replacement, Enzo Maresca, initially embraced this vision, but despite winning the Conference League and the Club World Cup and qualifying for the Champions League with a youthful squad in his only season, he could not fully win the support of match-going fans.
Ultimately, the transfers departed following a dispute involving his salary and the perception that the medical department was interfering with the use of players.
Chelsea’s next permanent boss, Liam Rosenior, placed an emphasis on culture and engaging with fans, but lost the dressing room before his vision could be fully realised.
Coaching instability has increased public concern amid growing doubts about the futures of current players Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella.
Fernandez’s agent, Javier Pastore, said he believed his client’s wages were low, but the Argentine signed a nine-year contract until 2032 when he joined.
“A nine-year contract is absolutely crazy, you don’t want to sign a contract like that,” former England striker Wayne Rooney told BBC Sport.
“Maybe you want financial security, but you don’t want to tie yourself down for that long. It’s just crazy.”
Chelsea have incentive-based contracts that include bonuses for Champions League qualification and they believe these are generally suitable for the market.
This is reflected in the club having the third highest wage bill in their latest accounts for the 2024-25 season. However, they have occasionally received higher offers from rivals, including the deal that saw Marc Guehi join Manchester City in January.
But the speed of the player trade left some fans feeling cold. In an extract from his column in the CFCUK fanzine, founding editor Dave Johnson said: “Any relationship between players and fans… is, in my opinion at least, at an all-time low.
“Ask any supporter of a certain age and they will tell you that the name of every player selected for the Chelsea team from the late 1960s onwards was called out during the warm-up and they responded with a thank you.
“But these days, to their detriment, the current crop of players seem completely disconnected from the people in the stands.”
