Most of the successful clubs in the world are hated because of various reasons. While Arsenal, Man Utd and Liverpool have had their fair share of haters, the decade’s trend has been that most of the football followers in England despise the newer and stronger clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City as well. This has been a different kind of hate. And here, in this article, people’s hatred towards Chelsea is analyzed!
“The small club with a sugar daddy.”
It is a usual statement in any banter when fans of other clubs argue with those of Chelsea. The pillar behind this statement goes by the name of Roman Abramovich who invested huge sums of money in Chelsea to bring the club to internationally supreme level to compete for titles. Chelsea before Roman’s ownership was a club that had its fair share of struggles, days of hard earned victories and mid-table finishes. Chelsea had just started to prove themselves as a consistent top 6 team, and in fact, a consistent top 4 team just when Roman was contemplating his choices for investment. Chelsea might have taken years to be somewhat closer to the level they are now, had it not been for Roman Abramovich’s passionate investments.
This clearly offended the fans of rival clubs, notably Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd and also those of the lower rung of the league who had a decent go at Chelsea when they were a good yet not a title contending team. Chelsea, thus became the first team in England to have been bought by a billionaire and converted into instant title contenders with a flurry of new players with top class ability. Other fans felt cheated and unfair when Chelsea was given such a huge boost. Jealousy obviously increased more when the Blues won back to back league titles and Stamford Bridge and West London stood out because of its wealthy and popular location as well. Chelsea became the lucky club who got the money from Abramovich.
“Chelsea’s style of play is boring.”
Chelsea’s new age DNA was constructed by the solid pragmatist and born winner Jose Mourinho when he took over for the first time in 2004. His principles were dependent on winning mentality, killer instinct and resilience. It was a psychological and mental strength in the Chelsea team of 2004 to 2006 that was a revelation.
The team’s main mantra was to get results. Kill the game. Score goals, don’t let others score and dominate the match. People knew what Chelsea would do on the pitch, but there was no answer to the obvious thing that they were going to do. It is not that Chelsea had players who were real magicians. They were direct and simple, but they did their job expertly. Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba and the others were not particularly pretty about their style of play. Directness and shooting was always the aim. It was scary for the opponents as Chelsea players ran and shot at goals.
But as time went on, Jose Mourinho quit Chelsea and then the subsequent managers found the going rather tough. Only Carlo Ancelotti managed to win the title. Later, Chelsea managed to bag the Champions League in a very defensive fashion. Chelsea displayed absolute anti-football against Barcelona and Bayern Munich and surprisingly, managed to destroy their dreams and clinch the UCL in a revolutionary fashion. While it would be a moment that most Chelsea fans would never forget, the fans of other teams consider the manner of Chelsea’s play as a disgrace.
According to them, Chelsea are a team that spend a lot in the window and still fail to produce attractive football and instead choose to play ultra defensive without attacking. Playing for results has been Chelsea’s main strengths and Abramovich’s newer signings have been more about flair than function, but again with Mourinho coming back to instill the killer instinct, one more transitional season resulted in an ultra defensive display, especially against Liverpool, a team that displayed the best attacking shows in the league but were beaten 0-2 against an ultra defensive Chelsea side who pounced on two errors. The overall reputation of some of Chelsea’s crucial wins in their recent history has always been negative for the fans of other teams.
There have been some other reasons for hate especially during banter, but the two main reasons of hatred for Chelsea have always been the above two. Jealousy is obviously a factor, but they are also a resultant of the two reasons mentioned in the article.
Guest post from our friends at Aliveforfootball.com