After finishing second in the Premier League last year, things were looking very promising for the Chelsea Blues coming into this season. They had qualified for the Champions League for the ninth straight year since 2002 and were in prime position to win their fourth Premier League championship since the 2004-2005 season.
Chelsea's billionaire Russian owner Roman Abramovich, who had been notorious around football for constantly firing managers, thought that he had finally found a long term solution to Chelsea's managerial woes. Since Abramovich became owner of Chelsea in June of 2003, the club had been through 7 managers including 6 in just under two years from September of 2007 to June of 2009.
However, after firing Carlo Ancelotti, Chelsea went after Portuguese manager Andre Villas-Boas. AVB had just finished out his first season with F.C. Porto where he had tremendous success. Porto finished undefeated in the league and they also captured the Portuguese Supercup, the Portuguese Cup, and the UEFA Europa League. AVB became the first manager to lead his Portuguese side to an undefeated season since Jimmy Hagan was at the helm of Benfica when the team went without a loss during the 1972-1973 season. AVB also looked like a terrific hire for Chelsea because he was just 33 at the time and it appeared that if he got the job, he would be able to give Chelsea long term stability at the manager spot because of his youth.
Abramovich was able to lure AVB to Chelsea, as the Blues bought out his contract with F.C. Porto and paid 15 million euros for the services of the Portuguese manager, the most expensive transfer ever by a manager.
Chelsea fans were also very excited for the season to come because they anticipated a lot better football out of Fernando Torres. Torres, whose transfer from Liverpool to Chelsea was the third-most expensive fee in history and broke the British transfer record at 79.5 million dollars, was obviously an enormous bust in his half of a season with Chelsea last year. The Spanish striker struggled mightily to find his place in the Chelsea squad, especially when he played along side of fellow striker Didier Drogba. Torres was scoreless in his first 13 games with Chelsea and only scored 1 goal with Chelsea in his 18 games with the club after the transfer.
With the worst year of his carrer behind him, many expected El Niño to perform much better with Chelsea in 2011-2012. He would be much more comfortable playing with the same guys for the second year and he couldn't be much worse than he was the previous year.
The expectations were surging out of the roof for Chelsea before the year and they may have been even too high for the team despite all of their talent. All things concerned, although Chelsea isn't having the season they may have been dreaming of before the year, it isn't nearly as bad as it may seem at first.
The experiment with André Villas-Boas turned out to be more of a disappointment than any Chelsea fan could have imagined. He lasted only 10 months with the club and coached the Blues in just 27 league matches.
AVB came under hursh criticism for his line-up and substitution selections. AVB put Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, and Michael Essien on the bench for the first leg of the Blues round of 16 Champions League match-up against Italian side Napoli, which the team later lost at the Stadio San Paolo 3-1.
Not only did AVB garner criticism for his managerial tactics, but he also lost control of the players in the club. Ashley Cole told AVB, "I came here to win medals and trophies, but I'm never going to do that with your tactics."
Villas-Boas had an extremely poor relationship with many of his other players as well including Frank Lampard and Salomon Kalou.
Lampard said about his manager, "I think, from the outside, you can probably see that it's not been ideal but the important thing is not to focus on individual relationships too much." Lampard told Villas-Boas after he wasn't apart of the starting 11 against Napoli, "I thought I should have be playing."
Salomon Kalou said, "I was told by the previous manager [Villas-Boas] that I was not allowed to play because I didn't sign a contract. Maybe he was building a new team and thinking I wasn't part of the future. That was a really big frustration and it has been a difficult season for me not being involved. I always worked hard and showed there was no reason why I shouldn't be in the team. It's not about money but playing time."
Aside from the shocking ineffectiveness of Villas-Boas and managerial turmoil surrounding the club, Chelsea has also encountered numerous other difficult and unexpected problems that have prevented them from playing at their highest quality all season.
Chelsea captain John Terry has been through a tumultuous year. On October 23, in a West London derby between Chelsea and Queen's Park Rangers, John Terry reportedly racially abused QPR defender Anton Ferdinand. Terry came under immense criticism and was stripped of his England national team captaincy because of the allegations. The issue has obviously been a large distraction for Terry, who has been charged with using racist language.
The centre back also missed significant time due to a knee injury in February, which he needed to have surgery on. The Chelsea captain missed over a month because of the knee and Chelsea severely struggled without him in the starting team. The Blues were 1-1-2 without Terry including losses to Everton and West Bronwich Albion in the Premier League. They also lost a Champions League game to Napoli without Terry, where their defense was pick apart by Napoli's talented attack led by Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi, and Marek Hamsik.
Chelsea has also had problems finding the right combination of midfielders to stick into their 4-3-3. Since the return of Michael Essien in January from his knee injury, Chelsea has been tinkering with all sorts of different guys in the middle of the field. Essien, Ramires, Frank Lampard, John Obi Mikel, Raul Meireles, and even Juan Mata and Florent Malouda at times have all been playing in the midfield, which has made it difficult for Chelsea to get in a flow because of all the different lineups.
Finally, people are beginning to question if Fernando Torres will ever return to the same player who scored 24 goals during the 2007-2008 season with Liverpool. Although Torres has shown improvements this year, as he has done a nice job of setting up his teammates for goal scoring opportunities, El Niño can't manage to do what he was brought in for, to score goals. Torres has scored just 2 goal in 24 Premier League appearances and the striker hasn't scored a goal in the EPL in over 7 months since September 24, 2011.
Considering the huge managerial mishap and the turmoil amongst the players with AVB at the helm, Chelsea isn't sitting in too bad of a position. Although they obviously aren't living up to expectations and most likely will not finish in the top 3 for the first time since the 2002-2003 season, the Blues are having as good of a season as could have been expected with their situation and they actually still have an opportunity to have a magical finish to the year. Although a Premier League title is out of the question, Chelsea isn't having as bad as a year as many people are assuming they are.
Despite the fact that Chelsea had a stretch from December 17 to March 3 where the team was 3-6-3 and failed to pick up wins against Fulham, Aston Villa, Norwich City, Swansea City, Everton, and West Bromwich Albion, the Blues are in fifth place in the EPL and are just 5 points behind fourth place Tottenham with 8 games remaining. Tottenham also has their next three games against teams that are in the top 11 of the Premier League wit Sunderland, Swansea City, and Norwich City.
Chelsea reached the quarterfinals of the Football League Cup, which is the furthest run they have made in the cup since they finished as the runners-up in the 2007-2008 tournament. They were one of just 6 Premier League teams to appear in the quarterfinals.
Chelsea is also in the semifinals of the FA Cup, where they will play London rival Tottenham with the victor moving on to play the Liverpool/Everton winner in the FA Cup final. The Blues have made it to at least the quarterfinals of the FA Cup for the 6th time in the last 7 years and they will be looking to win their fourth FA Cup since they won the 2006-2007 cup.
Finally and most importantly, Chelsea is one of only eight teams and the only team from the Premier League that remains in the Champions League.
Sir Alex Ferguson has said that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is "obsessed" with winning the Champions League. He said, "There is no question of that in my mind. Abramovich has very much nailed his colours to the mast in that respect; I've felt that for quite a while with him. But to have an obsession with winning the European Cup can stretch you a wee bit. It's a fantastic competition but, at the end of the day, it is also a very difficult competition to win. All the best teams are there."
However, the Champions League final in Munich doesn't sit too far away from Chelsea. Despite the fact that Chelsea has made the Champions League for nine consecutive years, they are actually having one of their most successful runs in the competition this year.
After the Blues looked all but finished in the tournament when they were going into the second leg of their round of 16 match-up with Napoli trailing 3 goals to 1, they were able to pull out a miracle by knocking off the Italian side 4-1 in the second leg to advance. Branislav Ivanovic's goal in the 105th minute completed Chelsea's shocking comeback and put Chelsea through to the quarterfinals.
After getting a favorable draw with Benfica in the final eight, Chelsea were able to get a key 1-0 victory away in Portugal at the Estadio da Luz. They now sit only one game away from reaching their first semifinal since the 2008-2009 Champions League.
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