LONDON – Mauricio Pochettino dismissed the domestic cup competitions during his time in charge of Tottenham as little more than a distraction, but they are providing a calming balm for what has been a painful Premier League campaign for his Chelsea team.
For Blues fans, the prospect of a cup run is the only thing seemingly stopping their faith from exploding. So much so that the relief they felt could clearly be felt when a four-goal second-half barrage finally saw Chelsea overcome Championship side Preston North End at Stamford Bridge to book their place in the FA Cup fourth round.
It is often said that a cup win can galvanize teams, particularly those operating under new leadership offering fresh ideas and a fresh approach. There is perhaps no other club in the world that is as excited about something new and shiny, regardless of its quality, as Chelsea. Since the Todd Boehly-led Clearlake Capital consortium bought the club in 2022 and invested more than £1 billion in young talent, surprisingly few landmarks remain in this corner of west London.
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It is a club and a team that has been distorted, remodeled and written off until it becomes an unrecognizable version of what came before. Who do fans identify with most? Why does the club want to let Conor Gallagher go? When did you sign Lesley Ugochukwu?
Here, however, Pochettino opted to give youth player Alfie Gilchrist his first start for the club and handed the captain’s armband to Levi Colwill. In the absence of the winning quality of their expensive team-mates, particularly during the slow first 45 minutes in which Chelsea failed to score for the 11th game in a row, Chelsea’s youth products brought steel and determination in an FA Cup match the old school I needed exactly that.
Gilchrist was excellent during his 61 minutes on the pitch. Colwill, meanwhile, has that rare Rio Ferdinand-esque gift of gliding down the court toward an opposing attacker like a figure skater before crashing into him with the force of a freight train.
For a team that rival fans accuse of having no history, echoes of Chelsea’s recent past float strongly around Stamford Bridge. Tributes to the victorious heroes (Peter Bonetti, John Terry, Frank Lampard) flutter in the wind above the pitch in west London, serving as a reminder of the relentless success that has defined this club over the past two decades .
It helps that they are there because, apart from the academy graduates, this Chelsea team bears little resemblance to the previous giant.
It seems derivative to simply dismiss the formation of this Chelsea team as a misguided and ill-informed attempt to create an American draft-style team, but the chances of Boehly ending up having the last laugh in a year or two are looking increasingly remote. . .
However, with Preston’s rowdy 6,000 fans feeling an unlikely surprise after watching their team go toe-to-toe with Chelsea’s stars, it was another academy graduate who opened the game for Pochettino.
The release of pent-up frustration was palpable at Stamford Bridge when Armando Broja jumped highest in the Preston penalty area to deflect Malo Gusto’s cross onto the post before goals from Thiago Silva, Raheem Sterling and Enzo Fernandez added some shine. in the final result.
“I think he [Broja] He needs to use this type of game, when he scores the goal and feels the net to improve. And improve not only in your physical fitness or your work ethic. [but also] his body language,” Pochettino said.
“He needs to smile more, a little more positive. I think it’s in the way he needs to improve and he’s going to improve in his game. The potential is amazing. We’re talking about one of the young forwards here in England. Or in Europe, I think , with greater potential… We are going to try to help them strive to realize that it is never enough and work very hard.”
The Albanian international’s professional progress to date has been hampered by a serious knee injury after he showed flashes of his talent during loan spells at Vitesse and Southampton. With Chelsea rumored to be considering a move for Brentford’s Ivan Toney, perhaps the time is finally right for the striker to prove his worth in west London.
“By the way, I think he has suffered a big problem in the past,” Pochettino said. “He was almost a year away [with injury] and of course now it needs time. “It is not easy for him to perform or be at the level we expect, but our expectations are enormous and I think we really believe in him and we will surely push him to try to improve every day.”
Tottenham’s repeated failures in cup competitions led Pochettino to complain in 2019 that winning the League Cup or FA Cup “only strengthens the ego”. His belief that “the most important thing is to be consistently in the top four and play in the Champions League” irritated north London fans who were longing for an end to Spurs’ current trophy drought.
However, since taking over at Chelsea, he had apparently given more credence to his potential benefits. His altered outlook was evident in the celebrations that followed his team’s penalty shoot-out victory over Newcastle in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals before Christmas. The consensus among Chelsea fans is that the Carabao Cup semi-final against Middlesbrough is the most important game of their season, and the prospect of a cup win provides vital support.
