IT WILL BE a valuable experience for Chelsea’s players to get a good look at Manchester City today.
Because it is the closest they will get to England’s supreme champions for quite some time.
They look miles off getting anywhere near the same level as the team everyone aspires to.
I rate Mauricio Pochettino as a manager and I really like him as a person.
He is a good football man, he knows the game well.
But he’s really got his work cut out trying to get this Chelsea squad into the top four of the Premier League, which used to be the minimum requirement for any manager at Stamford Bridge.
Go back to last Monday and that chaotic game at Tottenham.
Not only were the players unrecognisable but I also saw some pretty brainless footballers out on the pitch.
Spurs were to blame for some of it, some of the tackling was reckless.
Cristian Romero could easily have ended Enzo Fernandez’s career for one thing with a dreadful challenge.
That was stupid. But Chelsea’s tactics also left a lot to be desired with Tottenham there to be beaten 10-0.
Tottenham’s decision to play that high line with nine men was suicidal.
Yet it still took Chelsea nearly all the game to make their extra numbers count. So many offsides and a lack of intelligence. A team of kids could have worked it out quicker.
They made it hard going for themselves and got by on luck when it should have been a cruise. It won’t be that easy this afternoon for sure.
The other thing about this Chelsea squad is that I barely know who any of them are.
There’s Sterling, Gallagher, Silva, James, Fernandez and possibly Caicedo.
But after that I am pretty much snookered.
If I was offered a £100 charity bet to name the full Chelsea team I would expect to lose. And this from a club which has traded on big names and big characters down the years. It all seems so odd watching them at the moment.
Poch certainly needs to work on Mykhailo Mudryk.
The lad clearly has a load of pace but needs to learn the game. But you’d have thought for nearly £90 million he would do already. And this is another issue.
Chelsea have spent a fortune in recent years but they haven’t spent it well. Silva is still their best player and he is nearly 40!
Fernandez needs to be showing people why he is a World Cup winner, Nicolas Jackson got a hat-trick at Spurs but is he the answer as a centre forward?
I know Chelsea have muddled through without a recognised striker but I’m not sure Jackson is the solution, even after scoring three goals away from home.
Compare him to Didier Drogba, Diego Costa. Go back as far as Kerry Dixon.
Chelsea have had some terrific centre forwards down the years.
Now Pochettino is anxiously waiting on the fitness of Christopher Nkunku – who has never played a Premier League game in his life – to fill arguably the most important position in the team.
And this is where we really get to the point. Football is about the players. At this level it is about recruitment.
Pochettino is not a great coach but he knows players. Alex Ferguson was not a great coach but he knew football, he knew how to get an organised team together.
I rate Pochettino that highly in this regard. A top, top manager. But who buys the players these days? Not the managers.
I listened to a chat with the chief executive of Southampton Phil Parsons. He was asked about transfer policy and said that players are bought by committee. He was happy to say that it is not the manager who buys them.
That must make it so difficult. Whoever buys them, Pochettino needs the players to perform.
Graham Potter – a great up and coming young manager couldn’t do it. Frank Lampard couldn’t turn it around.
I hope Pochettino does. And if he does then in terms of management he will be right up there with Pep Guardiola – the man opposite him in the City dugout this afternoon.
