Chelsea is playing for a fall – Newspaper Kommersant No. 2 (7447) of 10.01.

At the junction of 2022 and 2023, the club season has resumed in all leagues of the “big European five”, except for Germany. And the restart brought some unexpected results. We are talking, for example, about the ongoing fall of Chelsea.

FA Cup

Last weekend in English football was given to the matches of the third round of the Cup of the country, and after them, of course, Chelsea was in the spotlight. The London club suffered a 4-0 away defeat to Manchester City in a game that can’t be said to be off the mark. On the contrary, the correspondence was absolute. Suffice it to say that the guests managed to strike the first shot on target only when almost an hour of the game was left behind.

In the first half, Chelsea looked so toothless that it was impossible to explain such inertia either by the power of the opponent, the current champion, or by their own personnel problems (nine players were injured).

But the main thing is that the match fits perfectly into the overall trend. There is no getting away from the fact that Chelsea are suffering a real disaster this season. And the fans of the team, who watched the Manchester beating, even quite clearly identified its main, in their opinion, reasons, constantly chanting two names – Roman Abramovich and Thomas Tuchel.

In the summer, as you know, Abramovich, who owned Chelsea since 2003, was forced to part with the club, selling it to a consortium led by American Todd Boehley. The new owners immediately made it clear that they were determined, having invested more than £ 250 million in strengthening the team as part of the summer transfer campaign, and in September, feeling that something was still going wrong, they took a risky step. So, instead of the dismissed Tuchel, with whom Chelsea won the Champions League in 2021, the position of head coach of the team was taken by Graham Potter, who worked with Brighton, who had never managed the giants until now.

And the preliminary results of this appointment seem sad.

Chelsea have already been eliminated from both cup tournaments (the same Manchester City threw it out of the English League Cup back in November), and in the English championship they are fighting for no reason.

After the Qatari world championship, three rounds took place in it. And Chelsea, having managed once again – last week – to give way to the Manchester giant, scored four points in them. All – in matches with rivals from the “basement zone”: a victory over Bournemouth and a draw with Nottingham. The location of the Londoners in the table should lead to a state of shock for their fans. They are in tenth place, even lower than the former Potter club. Moreover, the distance to Southampton, which is located on the bottom line, is much shorter than to Arsenal, which is at the top – 13 points against 19. Before the start of the season, it is unlikely that anyone would have believed that Chelsea could find themselves in such a situation. .

But there is nothing strange in the fact that all the leading English media resources are the BBC, The Guardian – talk about the “tremendous pressure” that Graham Potter has to deal with. However, the leaders of Chelsea have not yet hinted that the coach was “hanging”, and his colleague from Manchester City, Pep Guardiola, considered it his duty to stand up for him, saying after the cup success that Potter “should be given time”.

Guardiola himself, too, by the way, now, apparently, is not easy. The troubles of many competitors – and Chelsea, and Liverpool, and Manchester United – seemed to clear the way for him to another league title. But it turned out that there is a serious obstacle on it that does not want to disappear. Arsenal, after the Qatari championship, won all three matches in the Premier League, and Manchester City, always trying to catch up with him, made a small misfire, dispersing the world with Everton, and now lags behind the leader by five points.

Spanish Championship

There were two rounds played in the Spanish championship after the world championship, and the one that took place this weekend will probably play a huge role in the “golden race”. It is led by Barcelona and Real Madrid, and before the New Year – after the Catalans drew with Espanyol – they were level with each other. But then the Catalans broke away again.

Villarreal helped them break away, which on Saturday defeated the Madrid club 2:1 at home.

“Real” in this match surprised primarily by the fact that they did not put up a single Spaniard in the starting lineup.

One – Lucas Vazquez – appeared on the field in the middle of the second half, immediately after, having converted a penalty, Gerard Moreno brought the hosts ahead. The second – Marco Asensio – is already in the end, in which Real tried to push, but did not achieve anything.

Barcelona, ​​however, a day later, in a guest meeting with an opponent as strong as Villarreal, Atlético Madrid, did not stumble. Her game was not exactly going, but the only goal scored by Ousmane Dembele was enough for her to win.

Italian Championship

In the Italian championship, after the Qatari tournament, two rounds also took place. Napoli, who are ahead with an impressive margin, reduced it a bit, losing to Inter. But the position of the Neapolitans still looks the strongest. The closest pursuers are seven points behind. And these pursuers are Milan and Juventus. The Milanese missed the opportunity to get closer to Napoli by squandering a two-goal lead on the flag against Roma. As for Juventus, they are amazingly hot. After winning against Cremonese and Udinese, Turin’s winning streak reached eight meetings.

French Championship

In the French championship, Lens confirmed the status of an unconditional contender for the unofficial title of the club’s discovery of the year. It was he who on January 1 happened to inflict PSG’s first defeat in the tournament. Lens dealt with the Parisians, who did not play for a rest after the fantastic Qatari campaign Lionel Messi, but played Kylian Mbappe, Ashraf Hakimi, Marquinhos and other stars, with a score of 3:1, and only four points separate him from the giant.

Alexey Dospekhov