Snak

It is with a smile that Laurence Stewart says “I was waiting for this question” when he and his Chelsea co-sporting director Paul Winstanley are asked to explain the clubs’s policy of handing out eight-year contracts.

“People always sit and think ‘well that’s what we’ve always done, so that’s what we’ve always got to continue doing’. But without forward thinking and progression, everyone will stand still. So it’s a clever concept the owners implemented in the beginning and what they believed in. Once we looked at it together in isolation, we were like ‘yeah, you can definitely see how this can work’. And we believe in it.”

On the accusation that long contracts were introduced to try to circumnavigate PSR, Winstanley adds: “Well, you’re not getting any benefit from a PSR position on it any more and we’ve still continued with it. So if it was just for PSR, we’d have stopped doing it. That was never at the forefront of the owners’ minds when we spoke to them about how we see it working, how we all see it working as a club.”

“It’s because the players, the talent and the value they have over the long term is really important to the clubs,” says Stewart. “Really, it is the biggest nod towards the ability to identify talent. You’ve got to get that right if you’re going to put players on these long contracts and then it’s your ability to develop players and develop talent, and that’s one of the key things that we talk about internally, is to make our players better, across all of our teams.”

“This is a club that needs to be in the Champions League, it’s a club that needs to be competing to win trophies consistently and we want to do that with a certain way of playing football as well. So that absolutely is the ambition. And then the plan has been how do we go on a path to make that possible. And that’s been around investing in talent, committing to develop talent and developing a way of playing, the way we want our teams to play,” Stewart says.

“One of the messages the owners gave us from the beginning is that this is not about a short-term win or a short-term project, it’s about long-term success and that’s been one of the driving things on all of the decisions that we’ve made. That, absolutely, is the idea, to try to make the club long-term successful.”

“When there’s the changes that have happened, new ownership and what we walked into, you were always going to get some turbulence in the middle – there’s been some changes here, staff, players – and then you get the upward trajectory and that’s the place that we feel like we’re in at the moment,” says Winstanley.

Stewart takes up the theme by saying: “I think there was an acceptance there was a lot of work to do. You always want to come out of that as quickly as you can do. So I think you are seeing, after four transfer windows, there has been a period of time for that regeneration of the squad.”

Winstanley adds: “We’re out of that now, we’re completely out of that. We’ve had to make some brave decisions. But we feel the squad and the staff here at Cobham, the manager, and the playing staff are in a really good spot.”

It would have been understandable if doubts had crept in when Chelsea failed to qualify for Europe at the end of the owners’ first season at the club. Or after Gary Neville branded the squad “billion-pound bottle jobs” following last season’s Carabao Cup final defeat by Liverpool.

But Winstanley says: “We’ve had total belief from the start. We discussed this long and hard, right at the beginning, on the right strategy and the journey we need to be on. So we’re under no illusions that success is not on a straight line. There’s going to be hurdles to overcome. But we’ve had total belief in it, ownership, the staff, the club and the manager all have total belief in it. So it’s important to keep going on that journey and we’re excited about what the future holds.”

On the criticism they and the club have faced, Stewart says: “We can’t get too caught up in some of that noise of what’s going on outside, otherwise you’d lose a lot of time and energy to that. We know internally that we’ve been working towards a direction with a long-term plan.”

“Clearly Enzo coming in, I think everybody is seeing from Leicester the style of play aspect, but also Filipe… anybody who has seen the under-21s will see there’s a clear playing style developing and evolving there with principles that are connected and similar to the first team. So, in terms of the plan, there are really visible elements.”

“Enzo was somebody we admired and were keen to bring here,” says Winstanley. “We were really excited by the way he works, aligned with the club and the playing squad, how it’s set up to move forwards. And we absolutely see him here for the long term, that’s definitely how we see it.

“He’s got the personality to manage this club and coach this team, and he’s got a strong belief in the playing style, as we have. And that’s translating to the pitch, it’s translating to the players. The players have got a belief in that. So, none of us are surprised that he’s grasped it quite quickly, but it’s early days and we’ve got to keep that momentum going.”

Stewart adds: “As Paul said, we do see it for the long term. He has a five-year contract, that’s what Enzo signed and now he needs a period of time to work with the group and continue to confirm his ideas about his way of playing and for the players to understand that. It’s still very early days.”

Over the course of the past two summers, during the four-window rebuild, Chelsea have sold popular academy graduates Mason Mount and Conor Gallagher, prompting more accusations around the club’s approach to meeting PSR.

But Winstanley says: “We had a significant offer for one of our academy products this summer that we absolutely chose not to take. There’s a lot of misconception out there.
“We’ve had two debuts this year. There’s three or four more players in behind who we think we can push through this year as well that we’re keen to do. The manager’s on board with that, he’s aware of the players coming through. We give them opportunities when we can to make sure they’ve got that pathway.

“Clearly Enzo coming in, I think everybody is seeing from Leicester the style of play aspect, but also Filipe… anybody who has seen the under-21s will see there’s a clear playing style developing and evolving there with principles that are connected and similar to the first team. So, in terms of the plan, there are really visible elements.”

But Winstanley says: “We had a significant offer for one of our academy products this summer that we absolutely chose not to take.

Mit bud er det var Real Madrid som ville have Josh Acheampong, rygterne siger de vil prøve igen her til Januar.

Maresca believes big things could be ahead for Acheampong but has highlighted the work that must be done – on and off the pitch – by the 18-year-old Academy graduate to fulfil his undoubted potential.

‘I really like Josh,´ said Maresca during his pre-match press conference. ´For me, potentially, he can be a top player, a top defender in the future.