Joe Cole has just been on TNT Sport to look back at the weekend and try to make sense of Chelsea’s season after a damaging defeat to Sunderland.
Cole preaches patience for Blues fans
“It could be a title challenge, but it’s not looking likely if you don’t win games like this against Sunderland at home,” the former Blue said.
“It looks great on paper that the squad is still very young, and you are a better player at 23–24 than you are at 20, but there are so many lessons you learn from having senior players around.
“They’ve invested in an experiment effectively by buying young, committing to young footballers, so we’ll see where we are in two years. The amount of money that’s been spent and with it being a five-year project, next year there should be a title challenge, and then the year after there needs to be silverware.
“I think that’s fair… that’s not me putting undue demands on them.”
Chelsea fans are going to find that frustrating, we’re sure. After several years of this project, we’re still being told “next year” there will be a title challenge and “we’ll see in two years.”
That would be reasonable for a totally organic operation, but given the amount of money pumped into this team, 3 years and £2bn should be enough to get them at least competing in a title race.
In other news…
Cole had previously said he hoped that the Blues can go one better than last year by qualifying for the Champions League with a bit more of a cushion. Well, that’s not looking likely right now.
With the promise of a big step up this season fading fast there has been talk about manager Enzo Maresca leaving – and the departure of Igor Tudor from Juventus this morning has only accelerated that. Could we see a Sarri-like handshake deal?
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