A Blue Biopsy?

This is an email I sent out to the Chelsea Fancast that was read out by Jonathan Kydd. It was reasonably well received and Joe Tweedy reckoned it could be an article on the Chelsea Fancast website. Thought I’d publish it anyway for posterity, if nothing else.

 

Hello All,

Hope you are enjoying the international break. I say that without any hint of sarcasm. I for one am feeling relieved. This is a good time to pause, look around, gauge where we are and see where we can go. So, I thought, why not start with Brexit?

I understand that, as an Indian, I am far removed from the consequences. Do bear with me though. I am not going to get into who was right and who was wrong. However, there is something that is irrefutable. It’s that no one knew exactly what they signed up for. No one had any idea of the complexity of the whole procedure. Even the people who were supposed to be in charge had no clue on how to go through with it. It’s like sitting in driver’s seat of a car without knowing how to drive. You don’t know what to do but are too proud to admit. You think it’s too late back out. Thing is though, if you go through with it, it’s likely to end in an accident. The most unfortunate part about Brexit is that the decision was made by the masses, who as a collective, had the least amount of information. The masses were not fit to make a decision of this magnitude. I hope I have established that it not wise to make complicated decisions when you don’t have sufficient information.

I see something similar happening at Chelsea. No one in the management including Abramovich seems to know what to do with the club. The Champions League trophy was Abramovich’s Holy Grail. Since then we seem to have lost purpose and direction. It almost looks like they are suddenly discovering that it is difficult to run a football club. One season we get trophy winning ex-manager who demands investment, then we get another trophy winner with a history of pissing off his bosses and follow it up with a manager with absolutely no record of trophies. It seems like Roman is revising his objectives every other season. While this is not new, it’s bound to get tedious. I wonder if he has grown weary.

Now assuming the objectives have been set, reliable information is absolutely the most vital ingredient you can have to fulfil them. It can tip the balance in your favour. However, in many cases even with all the information you can get, there is still uncertainty. Think Brexit. Therefore I cannot fathom why the Chelsea establishment have sought to consistently reduce the presence of footballing people in decision making roles. Where is the board getting their information from? Do they have any measure of its reliability? Whom do they call for due diligence? I dread the answer will be ‘agents’.

Take the Callum Hudson Odoi situation for instance. In isolation, an 18 year old does not deserve more than, say 50,000 Euros per week. However, as soon as another club is ready to pay 1.5 times of the wages on offer in addition to a 30 million transfer fee, his notional value shoots through the roof. Notional value is usually all you have till a sale has been completed. It’s as true in football as it is in the world of business. You need valuation every time you negotiate a transfer fee, a contract renewal, a commercial deal – even a bribe. Now, if you cannot judge footballer’s ability, how can you project his contribution? If you cannot project his contribution how can you carry out his valuation? Without a grip on valuation it becomes a no holds barred negotiation. You push the other party to their limit and see how much blood you can drain in the process. Some might give in and others might quite simply walk away. Its’ risky but the payoff is great with it works out. I suspect that’s the way negotiations are done by Chelsea Football Club these days. It certainly explains our underwhelming transfer market performance of late.

A lot of what’s going on at Chelsea looks eerily similar to the May government. You have a group of decision makers who are constantly on the lookout for the path that causes the least pain; but find themselves a dead end. Our path of least pain has been ‘sack the manager’. Why have we come to this? We had a board that consisted of Roman’s close associates, executives with experience in managing football clubs in charge of administration and people like Arnesen and Emenalo in charge of scouting. That’s all gone. Now it’s a bit like a group of investment bankers running a coal mine. We have a CEO with no prior experience of managing a football club. That’s not a slight on Marina Granovskaia’s capability as a manager, but it definitely helps when a CEO can bring in learnings from a similar company. We have sacked or allowed footballing brains to leave – like the plethora of youth and assistant coaches, Arnesen, Emenalo, etc.

 The way I see it, it’s because there has been a change in Abramovich’s strategy since the Champions League win.  The lack of a clear objective post Champions League win coupled with FFP kicking off changed the club’s strategy dramatically. Before 2012, we sacked managers for not winning the league. Since 2012, the minimum requirement dropped to qualifying for the Champions League. The club’s objectives changed from winning silverware every season to improving the long term health of the club. Purchasing young players with significant room for improvement, planning a new stadium, investing in the academy and negotiating strong commercial deals are all steps in this direction. We actually did fairly well from a financial standpoint between 2012 and 2014. We profited from a lot of players we bought in this period. Was the attempt to improve the books a step towards sale of the club?

Lately, we have struggled on the footballing side of things. We haven’t bought a single young player whose stock has risen under us. Costa, Cesc, Pedro and Kante are all players who came with proven credentials. Morata and Bakayoko have been failures. We haven’t had a decent transfer window since Emenalo left in 2017.  The books still look alright.

From fans’ perspective though, these are the toughest years of Roman’s reign. There is no sense of proportion in the transfer market. Full backs are being bought at 50 million. 80 million for a striker coming off a 25 goal season looks like bargain. The biggest change is that teams like Liverpool, Tottenham, Atletico, Dortmund, etc have been able to keep hold of their players for longer that they used to. They have gained the ability to retain talent by paying them high wages. Add the fact that we have an aging team and an impending transfer ban. It honestly looks dreadful.

We are about to complete two consecutive seasons without being anywhere in the reckoning for the league title. Consider this – What if we don’t make it to Champions League next season AND Hazard is sold AND we are hit with the transfer ban? It doesn’t surprise me that rumours of Roman wanting to sell are surfacing. New age companies are sold when their stock is on the rise; football clubs are quite the opposite. They are typically sold when their financial value drops. That’s when the buyer is able to drive a bargain. The problem for Roman is that the club is too big to fail, too expensive to run but too overvalued to be sold. It’s a conundrum that he cannot escape. He if neither sells the club nor invests disproportionate sums of money, the club will go on a downward spiral and he will have to sell it at a significant loss. Not to mention completely ruin his legacy. I have no doubt that the club’s value has been grossly boosted by the army of young players. I am fairly certain that most of them are overvalued. So it is unlikely that Roman will get the money he expects anytime soon.

It’s a proverbial stalemate across the board. We have a manager who does not have the players he needs. We have an army of players who can neither be sold nor be promoted to the first team. We have an academy that is increasingly looking less of a pipeline and more of an independent revenue stream. We have an absentee owner. We have a legion of disgruntled matchgoing fans. And we have an impending transfer ban.

So the question is where do we go from here?

Unlike Brexit, we do not have a March 31^st deadline. Neither do we have an option of tearing up a referendum and going back to how things were used to be. The football landscape has changed and will keep changing.

I believe the first step is to clear deadweight. Sell the overage players who are not fit to be in the first team squad. It doesn’t matter if they are on loan or in the fringes. There should be no player over the age of 23 out on loan. He should either be in the first team squad or be sold. Having less players on the rolls will mean needing lesser resources to manage. It will help the decision makers to assess the situation more accurately.

The second step is to sell players over the age of 30 without leadership abilities. Experienced players must help the coach in management. It’s a bad sign if the manager has to go out of his way to keep the senior players happy.

The third step is to form a transfer committee which includes a couple of ex-Chelsea players, the current Chelsea manger, the academy head, scouting department head and the reserve team coach in addition to representatives of the board. The first team manager will have his requirements and the board will have a budget. The question is how to best fit the first team needs with the allocated budget. Isn’t it best to have a task force of multiple stakeholders to sit together and brainstorm? Maybe there is a young player in the reserves or a recent graduate from the academy that the first team manager hasn’t looked into.  Equally, involving the academy manager will keep him abreast to the first team needs.

Fourth step is to reconnect with ex-Chelsea players. We need to tap into the brand value of recent legends like Drogba and Cech. A phone call from Drogba is more likely to convince a young talent than a powerpoint presentation by an executive.  You know Joe Cole was instrumental in convincing Hazard. Imagine Ballack calling a young German talent on Chelsea’s behalf. We need advocates.

Fifth is to bring about some measure of synergy between all facets of the football – namely the board, the manager and the players. It seems like each of them is attempting to take the club in different directions. This is why you need footballing brains in the board.

And the final step is to communicate the objectives loud and clear. It’s fine if we are going into austerity mode for a couple of years at the cost of silverware. Communicate that to the fans. Fans are more loyal than you give them credit for. The frustration grows when problems are uncovered after the time to solve them has elapsed. I’d rather our football club does not go that way.

Much like Brexit, it’s not only about who is right and who is wrong. It’s about being cognisant of your capabilities and going in a direction that befits the said capabilities. Running a mammoth organisation is like captaining a cruise ship. You may allow for course corrections but it is absurd to make a sharp turn. Sharp turns will end up with furniture flying around, guests vomiting and staff panicking. It’s hardly worth it unless you are about to hit an iceberg head on.

Coming back to football, as things stand, personally, I am not fussed about where we are in the table. For now all I want to see is 11 players on the pitch playing with pride, commitment and energy AND fans chanting their hearts out for 90 minutes. That would be a good start.

Up the Chels!

Best Regards

Vinod

 

Chelsea Fancast is a wonderful podcast on all things Chelsea, usually led by @stamfordchidge and @jonathankydd.

Their website is http://www.chelseafancast.com

I strongly recommend listening to this particular podcast Blessed Relief where JK reminisces about Chelsea in the 60s.

The podcast in which the above mail was read out is Saved by the Bellend

 

A Letter To Didier Drogba

Dear Didier

A memorable journey has come to an end. Rationally, it is the right decision for you and the club. We all need to move forward and we will. However, there is a time for making sense out of this. Football is not all about cold logic and pragmatism. It is also about unexplainable passion, unexpected magic and sheer will. It is a game full of emotions, and you more than anybody else embodied that. It is impossible for any Chelsea fan to set their emotions aside when he thinks about you. You have frustrated me, perplexed me, amazed me, enthused me, made me laugh, made me cry, lifted up my spirits and you have topped it all by giving me one of the greatest moments in my life. And I have not even seen you in flesh and blood. I am not writing this as a tribute to you. This effort is a very selfish desire to trace back my association with you and document it. I do not ever want to forget you. This is so that I do not miss you after my visual memory has faded.

In July 2004, when I heard reports that Chelsea were to sign a strong physical African striker I could not understand the logic. I believed Gud and Crespo were perfectly good first choice pair up-front. One had superior ball control and technique and other was a thorough-bred goal scorer. I wondered why we were spending £24 million on another striker. After watching you play, I was adamant that Crespo should be first choice. You were physical, went in hard and never shied from confrontations. Crespo was a classical goal-scorer and Gud had the finesse. Eye-pleasing is what I wanted. You however did not bother about what pleased the eye. You did what the gaffer told you. You ran yourself to ground, threw your body to latch on to every long ball and unselfishly laid off headers for Duff and Robben. That was a time when teams still used to play 2 strikers. You played alone and ensured that defenders noticed you. For most of the 90 minutes you did not look for goals, but looked to make yourself a menace to both the opposition centre-halves. An ignorant fool that I was, I found it frustrating. I loved the mazy runs of Robben, the trickery of Duff and the fine goals of Lampard. I did not realize then that none of these players would have had space afforded to them had you not been there. You drew the centre-halves. You created the space. You made them so weary that they lost focus. You, with others won our first Premier League title in a long long time. I did not realize all of this till that outstanding game at Anfield. That game represented everything about you. You were involved in all four goals and scored none. You gave Hyypia and Carragher a nightmare. You displayed pace, power and trickery in equal measure. That to me still remains your finest performance. When things did not go so well for us in the next two seasons, there were times when I felt you should be moved on. I felt that our physical style was not working. That we need to be more refined to win the league against a free-flowing Manchester United side. But soon enough you proved me wrong again. By 2007 you had developed into a heady combination of a beast with the ability for the delicate. Your touch was magnificent and your ability to hold of defenders and turn with the ball was unmatched in the footballing world. Not to mention those powerful swirling shots that confounded Howard, Reina, Lehmann and many other goalkeepers. With Robben and Duff long gone, you had reinvented yourself to suit the forward lines. There were no pacy wide men to latch on to your headers, so you started taking the balls on your chest a lot more. After a forgettable time with LFS, you were in the mix in that memorable semi-final against Barcelona. You missed fair number of chances but you said what every Chelsea fan wanted to say. You had the guts. Once Sheva had left there was no real competition for you. You had a fair number of forgettable performances but you came good in big games. You would not have a meaningful touch for long periods then you would conjure a goal out of nothing. Competition has always brought the best out of you. We won the double under Carlo. This season you have been instrumental in giving us what we have been thirsting for ages. At 34 you ran your socks against Barcelona. You played an auxiliary left-back when the team needed that. You chased the ball knowing that you will not intercept it, but purely because not chasing would give the opposition time to put a telling pass. You slid, tackled, blocked shots and helped out the defence in set pieces. And they call you a prima-donna. Your last kick for Chelsea FC won us the Champion League – the biggest trophy in club football. You deserved it as much as anyone else. It is really a great source of satisfaction for me that you have Champions League medal.

That was the football; but what you meant for us Chelsea fans of this era, goes much beyond football. You are responsible for creating our identity. An identity not based on pleasing the world, but being resilient and believing in ourselves. In my early years as a fan, I strived for validation from opposition fans and pundits in the media. They were never forthcoming. You were routinely slated for diving and play-acting. You were called a powerful beast. Your excellent technique was rarely mentioned let alone appreciated. Eventually I realized that it is not what others think about the players from my club, it is what we fans think of our players. You have taken a physical battering beyond human limits. You have not cared what others think of you. You spoke for all fans on that fateful night on May 2009. When it mattered you have done what it takes for this club; and that is the very essence of Chelsea Football Club of this era – Doing what it takes. I no longer need to read a random pundit’s glowing tribute to make me feel good that Didier Drogba was a part of Chelsea FC. I no longer need rival fans to tell me that they wish you played for their club. I do not care if you do not make it to Fantasy teams. You have reached the pinnacle as a Chelsea player in my eyes. I recognize your frailties and your strengths. I recognize your ability to stand up and carry the team in one moment and be utterly childish in another. However,  I feel privileged that you have been a part of Chelsea FC for so long. You, Frank Lampard, John Terry and Petr Cech have been the backbone of this club for the last 8 years. All the trophies that we have won, we owe it to you four. You are the first to move on. Every second that you have spent in the Chelsea jersey is much appreciated. You have the love and respect of all Chelsea fans. You will never be missed by us because you would never have left our memories.

I wish you all the joy in life, success for your foundation and pray that your country and continent becomes a peaceful place.

Adios

Up the Chels!

Vinod

ENGLISH WORLD CUP CAMPAIGN: A TOP DOWN FAILURE

ENGLISH WORLD CUP CAMPAIGN: A TOP DOWN FAILURE
By Vinod Iyer

So another World Cup has been completed. Unlike the last World Cup, no one has an iota of doubt on the worthiness of Espana as Football World Champions. That the Bengalis would be surprised to see Europeans showcasing more skill than the Brazilians is a different issue. The World Cup threw many surprises and some expected results. The Spanish played like Brazilians, the Brazilians played like Germans, the Germans played like the Dutch, the Dutch played like the English and the English played their National Cricket Team. And that brings us to the English Football Team. The English press love dissecting their National team. They will tell you that Gerrard was not played in his favored position, Lampard is not really World Class, Terry is too slow, Barry is useless, Heskey is too immobile and what not. While some statements are justified, most are not. The pundits have peeves with certain players and given an opportune moment they prefer getting on the backs of their peeves than digging deep into what really the problem is.

The problem with England has always been the Management with a shadow of doubt – in this case, Mr. Fabio Capello.

A manager, not just in football, is expected to maximise the result with the resources available. Resources are generally limited and therefore complicates a managers life. This is why critical decisions must be taken with great care. With the resources Capello had maybe the R16 was the best possible result. That cannot not however overshadow the systemic failures in the English squad.

To understand what Capello missed out, I would like to illustrate two coaches who made the best out of their resources – Bert van Marwijk (Holland) and Joachim Low (Germany). The Dutch team in 2010 is unlike any Dutch team of earlier times. The first choice defence in the World Cup consisted of a young talented Right Back, 2 decent Centre Halves and an aging left back. There were however excellent attacking options in van Persie, van der Vaart, Sjneider and Robben. Notwithstanding Robben’s suspect fitness, attack seemed like the way forward. Get the goals in and do not worry about conceding the odd goal. van Marwijk, though had other plans. An attacking mentality would have got the Dutch into the Knock-outs, but surely they would have struggled to push on further. Instead of planning the team around the forward line van Marwijk planned his team around the two holding midfielders, de Jong and van Bommel. What’s more, when not in possession they defended as a unit.

Low had a different problem – that of occurrence of event(s) on which he had no control over. Unexpected events can make or break a manager. It challenges the ability to be patient, clear-headed, creative and bold. The key World Cup qualification games saw Germany play with three central midfielders with Rolfes and Schweinsteiger in defensive roles with Ballack pulling the strings in attack. Up front we saw one striker and two slightly wide forwards. The wide men did not really float a lot. Ballack was fairly important in getting goals and he ended up as their third highest goal scorer in qualifiers behind Klose and Podolski. It was a real blow to Germany when both Ballack and Rolfes were injured for the World Cup. The Ballack injury was more damning as Ballack had been the general for almost 6 years and more importantly, the injury happened just a month before the World Cup. Low would have been forgiven even if Germany had huffed and puffed to the Quarter Finals. Instead, Low displayed courage, intelligence and imagination that made Germany one of the most attractive and strong team in the World Cup. He did away with 3-man midfield, strict flanking positions and the linking man in the midfield. Instead what we saw was a striker, a fluid 3-man attack and 2 holding midfielders. The novelty of the system was the freedom given to the 3 forwards. They gleefully interchanged postions or ran into free spaces. What the German fans saw was unprecedented and it was all down to the vision of the manager.

In both the cases, there was very clear understanding of the resources in hand. This was Capello’s biggest weakness. Even after two full years in charge Capello did not seem to have any understanding of his players. By April he should have been clear about the pecking order in goal, defence, midfield and attack. Instead, he grappled till the last moment to decide the final 23. Unlike Germany, he did not have any surprise injuries. He should have decided the final 23 well in advance and focused on training them. The friendlies should ideally be used as a mechanism to improve on-field coordination and fitness. Instead, the friendlies were almost turned into a pantomime to prove competency. By the time the third game of the World Cup was completed, it was patently clear that Capello had no clue about his best line-up, formation or tactics. His first flaw was to define the system without gauging player ability. In the first game England lined up as a 4-4-2 with Milner and Lennon on the flanks. He started 2 players who were not completely fit. You take one gamble at a time. Capello took two clear gambles and it blew on his face. Both King and Milner were out before the first half ended. Although England had scored early, Capello conceded tactical advantage to his opponent by have to make 2 forced substitutions. The second game again saw England line up in a 4-4-2 with Gerrard on the left. Gerrard’s positional indiscipline meant that either Lampard or Barry had to cover for him and that greatly diluted the influence of the central midfield in build-up play. By this time it should have been crystal clear that there is a systemic flaw in the strategy. The simple question to ask in such a situation would have been ‘What are my team’s strengths?’ Surprisingly, there are multiple answers ‘2 pacy and energetic full-backs, midfielder adept at keeping the game ticking, a passionate and energetic attacking midfielder’. With 2 fast full-backs, Capello could have afforded a narrow formation. Sadly, Capello was a victim to his earlier decisions. Any change in the formation would mean that he was wrong all along. The John Terry press conference probably made him more rigid and defensive than open and welcoming. Wingers were never the strength and yet Capello persisted with a system that gave them the responsibility of creating goals. He did not show the understanding of van Marwijk or the imagination of Low. Instead he focused on following a poorly thought and extremely sub-optimal system.

There is no questioning Capello’s credentials as Club coach. However, the national coach has different challenges to which Capello did not adapt. His starting point was formation and from there-on it was a painful path to inefficiency. Capello is known to be a strict disciplinarian. Sadly, the discipline in training was never reflected on the pitch. One of the glaring gaps in the English team was the lack of role-definition. The positions were defined, but the roles were not. It was almost as if the English players were expected to improvise. You cannot expect players to improvise when you do not have a stable system in place. We know that Capello will be the English manager till the Euros. The first thing he needs to do is treat the team like that of a mid-table club. Retain the ambition but understand that the team is working with a handicap there is need for strict discipline on the pitch. The next step would be to define roles. Pick a player or two (Ideally two central midfielders) whose position will indicate the aggression of the team. It is very critical that these two players are disciplined, intelligent and aware. The rest of the team can be built around these two players. Once Capello has the shape in mind, he needs to pick his players – not a month before the Euros, but now. He needs to decide who will be too old for the Euros, who has a poor injury record and who blows hot-and-cold too often. There are just too many decisions to be made for a manager who has neither taken stock of the resources in hand nor completely understood the gravity of the situation. The only way forward is to start from Zero.

The Fallen Ego

Haven’t been able to get a good connection to upload the Varanasi snaps. Hopefully I can do it tomorrow.

This is a song I wrote about a couple of years back. Hoping I will be able to write music for it sometime in my life.

THE FALLEN EGO

By Vinod Iyer

Deep into the depths of loneliness

He walks on an untread path

A sequestered mortal that he is

He will not enliven his dreaded past

He was the Emperor of the Universe

A world that was meant to be his

Every soul was a slave to his needs

And so was he

A slave to himself

“Who lives believing he can destroy me?

Which God would dare take my life?

And you lesser mortals down there

I let you live for all the time you live before you die”

Blood was the flavour of conquest

Terror killed those who dared despise

Every cadaver smelt the reek of supremacy

No one could rule while he was alive

Came to the kingdom then a prophet

“Beyond the seas, that is where I am from

Oh you ignorant fool sitting there on the throne

Believe me, your day will come”

The emperor scoffed at the prophet

“I will rule not just yonder

I will go beyond the seas

I will rule the depths of ocean

I will rule the genesis of thunder”

The Emperor took to the sea

The sea gulls shrieked, the dolphins fled

Many suns and moons passed

The Emperor sneered

“I rule everything that lives, the rest is dead”

Then rose a virgin sun, Brilliant rays of hope

In the saffron of dawn shone new sails of power

In sight stood a potent force Kraken led

The Emperor drew his Steele to his men

“We will fight till infinity, but depart we will never”

The war drums shredded the heavens apart

The electric collision of power began

His Steele cried for more blood

An eternal craving

Could it ever be quenched?

And then flew a black sea gull

There in front of the Emperor’s eyes

A fleeting moment in eternity

Against him, God had rolled the dice

The crown fell to the dust

The shield soaked his blood

The Steele lay wrecked

The Emperor broke down

Lifeless but undead

The new sun vapourised his blood

The victor stood with his weapon between the fallen eyes

Pleading for clemency from a fellow human

The beggar remembered the words of the wise

He was the emperor of the universe

Or so he thought

He lay there screaming for his life

He was howling

As they shut the gates of light

Many blue moons had passed

when he opened his eyes

Every dawn he began a new life

Every dusk he died