Why are Chelsea struggling this season?

40th in the Premier League, one win, not scored since August. Rather than get better after a terrible season last time round, dare I ask how they actually got worse? It hasn't changed, nothing's changed. The three football matches they've won in about 22 or so now has been Bournemouth when they just stayed up, played them the week after, beat Wimbledon in the Cup and beat Luton. If you get beat by Luton, no disrespect to Luton, but at home you're expected to beat them. He's got the same problem as the last manager, the last two managers that have been at Chelsea, Ian Potter and Frank Lampard, and Pochettino's exactly the same one. He doesn't know his best team, doesn't know his best team. If you don't know your best team, I don't see how you've got a chance of winning. It's swap here, swap there. For me today, I play my best team. I put Conor Gallagher on the pitch, I put Enzo Fernandes on the pitch. I need to win a football match. I need to win a football match. They're playing once a week. But they haven't been winning football matches. No, but they need to win. These players that are playing haven't been playing, and they haven't been good enough to get into the team that hasn't been winning. So for me, you play a team. They're only playing once a week. As soon as this competition goes out the window tonight, you've got to keep a lot of players at me. Tonight, he's keeping players at me like Kukurela and people like that who are going to be playing. But if we go out the cup now, that's it. The season's over virtually. Is there a problem with motivation? Putting lads on long, long contracts. Do you think that's been an issue where they think, I'm going to be here for seven years regardless? They're always going to be there longer than the manager, aren't they? Probably the next four or five managers. You've got to have something about you to turn up at Stanford Bridge in a packed house, 38,000, 40,000 people, and give it that, nah, not today. That's some doing. You know, I go. The crowd are on you. But I think, Mersi, with a long contract with such young players, you've only got to drop off a 5%. And that comes from training. It's like, maybe I'm not quite at it. I don't quite fancy it today. I'm not going to quite put everything in to get into that team. But do you think it's the long contract? I go a little bit further now. I don't think they're good enough. How many times have we said, young kids, too much, too soon? So many. You know how quickly nothing changes. The thing is, the contracts are crazy. If I'd have given you a nine-year contract, you'd have had your slippers on. That is true. I'm coming in, I'm scoring goals, I'm somersaulting all over Stanford Bridge. Let's play. I'm somersaulting all over Stanford Bridge. Let's play football. Let's score some goals. Because that's what it should be, no? That's what it should be. I agree with Merce. Chelsea seem to be like the kid with lots of money but buys average clothes. You know? That's harsh. Most of the players, let's face it, did we hear about them? Are we hearing about them now? Even at Chelsea? Not really. So they're underperforming. And at some point, it's not the manager. Where is it? Who's the players that are playing on the pitch? Because at some point, it has to be, well, you're not good enough. I think the manager's not getting the best out of them. There are some very good players in that team. You go through that team, there are some exceptionally good players. For all the players they've bought, they haven't bought a team. They've bought a lorry load of players and then gone, right, what am I going to do now? I saw a stat today, Merce. Leicester have scored more goals in 2023 in the Premier League than Chelsea have. They got relegated in the summer. No, that's the thing what Merce said. It's they're not a team, they're individuals, aren't they? But that's a culture. Yeah, but they've bought young players with lots of potential for the future. So it's not for the here and now. And I think when you look at some of the games, when you watch Chelsea, you say, well, they play really well up until that final third, and it's that final third that's letting them down. But there's enough experience in that side. Pochettino, Frank Lampard got slaughtered for not getting a tune out of them. Now Pochettino can't do it. But then he says, Danny, he says this team needs to mature, it needs to grow up. But if your transfer policy is to bring in young players, it's going to take time. Look at their team. You've got the likes of Chilwell in there. You've got the World Cup winners in there. I think Enzo's brilliant. There's a lot of good players with a lot of experience in there. Thiago Silva's in there as well. It boils down to motivation. And that's what I think it is. And that comes from the manager. I think what Pochettino said on Saturday is, our team needs to mature, not just as a team, but individually. And I think that gave you a little insight of, hold on a minute. Is there a real fight for those players not in the team to get in the team when they're on nine-year contracts? I don't think there is. So that's the point. I'll go for the oldest player on here tonight, off the top of my head, would be Chilwell, 26. He's made 11 changes. But still, you know, when we were growing up, when we all started playing professionally, when you made your debut or you got in that team, you wanted to be playing around experienced players. One, you wanted to go in with experienced players. And two, you didn't want to go into a losing team. But that's their second string full of internationals. He's only made five changes, by the way. Five changes. But he's got two teams of internationals, and he can't motivate them. How much of this early season, you know, Lampard couldn't do it, Potter couldn't do it. How much of this is on Pochettino, what's happening at the moment? I hope he gets the time. I hope he gets the time, but you just don't know with the owners. You don't know with the owners, you know. But I would like to think so. I'd like to think so. I think come January, they've got to bring in a bit more experience. My worry would be Enzo Fernandez. I don't think he hangs around. I think if he carries on like he is, 100 million playing player, well-cut winner, these players don't want to play middle-of-the-table football. They don't. They're there. They've got the money. They want to win trophies. That's what it's all about, winning trophies. Everybody gets big money now. But it's who goes on and wins the trophies now. Before it used to be, do I go for the trophy or do I go for the money? But now it ain't. You get the money and you've got a chance of winning the trophies. So, Merce, if it's not motivation, then are they scared to be playing on that stage? I keep on going back. I don't think all of them are good enough. I don't think they're good enough. I don't. I looked at it. Sky done a thing on the website the other week and had all the squad and it said Chelsea are putting a squad together to win 100 points. I'm like, this will never get 100 points. Never. And that's what Mourinho was amazing at. Mourinho was unbelievable at being able to put a team together. Yeah. He wasn't always the greatest players, but the way he managed that team and made that team incredibly solid, and he did it into Milan as well. It wasn't just Chelsea that he did it at. He got the best out of those players. It was only short term. You're talking about the best manager in the world, one of them Pep Guardiola. He had Aguero, and then he played with no centre forward. It worked because they had great players. And then he goes and gets Haaland. If you ain't got a good centre forward, you don't win nothing. Man United were winning stuff with Van Nistroj, with Van Persie, people like that, you know. Chelsea were winning stuff with Drogba and Costa. Chelsea haven't got a centre forward. And is that why they're missing so many chances? They're not creating them. No, they're creating them. You know, I like the kid. I like Jackson. I do like him, but he's a young lad. He would be brought out of the firing line every day of the week by now, but they haven't got anybody. You know, there's another thing I always say. If there's one thing you can do as a professional footballer, is bottle it up, is confidence. It's a horrible thing. When the confidence goes, you know, that goal gets smaller. You start snatching. You know, when you're flying, you turn up every week and go, I'm going to score. Right now, there's pressure building on after the Aston Villa result because it was almost like, well, OK, you've lost the game. OK, we're not seeing it now. And I think slowly, slowly, the pressure is going to mount on Chelsea from last Saturday. But tonight is big, this weekend, and I think it is down to the manager, of course, but he's also trying. But you have to give him a bit of time. You have to give him a push. We know he's good. There's not too many better managers out there who's going to be a job. The problem he's getting now, and we've all played against Chelsea and gone to Stamford Bridge, it was never a place where you'd sit in the dressing room and go, keep these quiet for 20 minutes, and they're going to turn and it's going to be game on. That's how it's getting to go now. You know, 20 minutes gone. If they're not 1-0 up against Brighton in 20 minutes, the fans are getting restless now. They are getting restless because they've just been used to so much success. Pochettino said this week, didn't he? You can't buy confidence in the supermarket. In a transfer market, you can buy a Kunku, and they've been obviously really hampered by the injury to him. You can also, in a transfer market, if you want to spend the money, buy Victor Osserman from Napoli. And if you've seen the stories today about his agents threatening to sue the club over derogatory social media posts about his client, they wanted £150 million for him in the summer. He was the top scorer in Serie A last season, took Napoli to the title suit. Could he be the missing piece to the Chelsea jigsaw? He's a brilliant player, isn't he? But did we say that about Lukaku? I think we said, didn't we, that the missing piece of the jigsaw is when he comes in. And I think, yeah, mitigating circumstances you can look at for Pochettino, so you can say, well, the injuries that they've got, they've got a lot of injuries. You mentioned Nkunku, who did really well in pre-season, scoring goals, assisting, linking with Jackson. They're getting themselves into the final third, but maybe decision-making needs to be that little bit better. They've had so much change. So you feel that he has got a little bit of time. I know that the fans are getting frustrated. They're bound to. They're paying their money. They want to see them win. But, of course, if a player like Osserman comes available, then, of course, most teams would go for him. I would take Tony over him every day of the week. Every day of the week. I mean, you're talking about a lad who's played in this league, scored goals in this league, at times dominated this league and sent her off. You bring in a lad from Italy, heads or tails. Chelsea haven't got a year or six months for someone to settle. They need someone to come in. Big advantage with Tony. He's fresh. Come January, he's fresher than everybody else. He hasn't played football. You know, for me, I think, plus with him as well, I go stand for Bridge a lot. Teams kick off and they just sit 10 behind the ball. Chelsea can't break teams down. You know, so you don't need someone who wants to go that way. You need someone who's going to be intelligent, who's going to come that way and start drawing people out for the wingers like your Stirlings and people like that to make inside runs. At the moment, these wingers have got nowhere to go because Jackson stands up front and there's no room. There's no room. You know, and for me, I think Tony would be a massive, massive hit at Chelsea. Glenn's nodding. I've been a massive fan for a number of years now and I was touting him to Manchester United in the summer. Obviously, things went sideways a little bit, but I think he would fit perfectly into Chelsea. And like you say, when people sit in Merse, I think he's got that physicality to rough people up. Do you know what? When you can't break them down, what you end up doing is putting balls in the box and he's got that airy ability to be able to get on the end of something. He's got a point to prove and he's got the Euros coming up. Yeah. The thing is, though, you can't play until January, so do they have enough time until January to wait? Because that's the biggest problem. I haven't told him he can't play until January. Yeah. So what's going to happen before then? Does it continue to struggle like this? Yeah. That club won't have it.