At first glance, many would think that Chelsea have one of the most settled, stable squads in the division. José Mourinho’s reluctance to rotate over the Christmas period exemplified this, he is certain of his best eleven – but could this ultimately cost us?
Martin Lipton tweeted something that got me thinking; “not sure any team can win title when manager only trusts 15 players.” Is that true? Is Mourinho’s lack of rotation because he is content with his team or because he is dissatisfied with his squad?
It could well be the latter. For example, Willian hasn’t set the world on fire this season and his goal/assist to game ratio is pretty modest for a winger playing at this level – but Mourinho has been reluctant to try and find a more fruitful alternative within his ranks. Andre Schurrle and Mohammed Salah cost the club a combined figure in excess of £25M, and both have been starved of opportunities. On the rare occasion they have been given a chance, both have been underwhelming – Willian’s spot in the side hasn’t come under any real threat.
To have such little competition for places in the team could be a real problem for Mourinho; it leaves the side at risk of stagnating during a crucial period of the season. The Special One doesn’t seem to have any kind of faith in many of our ‘squad players’, it was only against Newcastle that he decided to finally swing his axe and cut Gary Cahill from the side – he’s been shaky since day one and we’re into the New Year now. I’m under no illusion that he sees Cahill in his long-term plans, I think a centre-back will be somewhat of a priority in the summer – so why has he been continually starting games even when performing poorly? Kurt Zouma has barely put a foot wrong in the little we’ve seen of him, and on his league debut he was fantastic; it is beyond me why we’ve had to wait this long for change.
Let’s look back to last season, our involvement in the latter stages of the Champions League, in my opinion, ultimately cost us domestically. It was a distraction and towards the end of the Premier League season, more specifically in home games against Sunderland and Norwich, it did seem as if our head was elsewhere. We are expected to challenge on all fronts this season, we have cup two cup games against Liverpool, two against PSG and an FA Cup game against Bradford all coming up in the next months dotted in and around our league fixtures – we NEED to rotate.
You only have to look to the 5-3 loss at Spurs – we looked laboured. If not for the genius of Eden Hazard we wouldn’t have been in that game at all, it simply wasn’t good enough and we had it coming. So many games in such a short space of time over Christmas and Mourinho named virtually the same team in all of them; we can’t make the same mistakes again.
Ramires, Andre Schurrle, Mo Salah, John Obi Mikel, Filipe Luís, Kurt Zouma and Loic Rémy would all start for virtually all the other teams in the division, we are blessed to have this squad depth and we simply have to make the most of it. Not only to avoid fatigue catching up with the players as it has in the last month, but also to keep our opponents guessing. A one dimensional team can’t win the title, we need to mix it up; variation between the pace of Willian and the cutting edge of Schurrle is an example of something Mourinho may want to experiment with. Azpilicueta is an outstanding full-back defensively, but Filipe Luís is more offensively apt; especially against opponents in the lower half of the table he is a weapon which we should use to our benefit more than we have so far this season.
At the end of the day, José knows best; but that doesn’t mean that we can’t question is decision making. At the business end of the season, Mourinho may just need the hunger from our squad players to see us through, and make 2015 a year to remember.
