“Chelsea are behind” – Why Blues’ transfers and summer activity is costing them now | OneFootball

Chelsea have made a shaky start to the season, winning 2 of their 6 games and with injury and fitness issues bubbling up already.

On the London is Blue podcast they discussed the issue, with presenter Dan Dormer pointing out that this was all very predictable – and perhaps even justified, given our performance at the Club World Cup.

Blues paying penalty for Club World Cup

Chelsea lift the Club World Cup. (Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images)

“I’m not surprised that we’re struggling at this moment,” he said.

“We didn’t have a real preseason. We played later into the summer than any other team did. We did not necessarily buy a bunch of starters to come in and replace several of the players who had been playing a ton of football. Chelsea are behind in their conditioning and fitness relative to several other teams in the league. And you’re seeing that in slower starts in games, and in starters needing to come in potentially at the end of a game to go and get a result.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing, considering what we did this summer, which was to go and win the Club World Cup. Not a lot of other teams in the world – none, in fact – are able to say that.”

Chelsea’s transfer decisions already haunting them

While it’s clear we didn’t have a good preparation for the season and it could affect the rest of the campaign, at this stage we’ve played enough games that the players are all fit – in fact, some have played too much. We disagree that at this point we’re significantly “behind” in conditioning – the problem will be later in the year when we’re overplayed.

What’s much more of a concern is what he says about our transfers – it’s true that a lot of the players we bought are not “starter” quality.

That’s fine in games like tonight’s, where we face Lincoln, but becomes a problem in the Premier League when changing out team makes it weaker.