Does pre-season actually matter?

This will all be forgotten in a month, so why are we paying this much attention?

Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images

I was recently watching a tactical analysis video by Tifo Football in reaction to Manchester United’s 4-0 win over Liverpool in Bangok. In the video, entertaining and insightful host JJ Bull, keeps on reminding us “it doesn’t matter”.

Over the course of a nine-minute video where he taps away at tactical pad showcasing how TenHagBall? Erikball? AjaxBall? has begun to alter United’s approach to pressing and rotations. After each point made, he always breaks after to remind us again “it doesn’t matter”.

By the time you are reading this, Chelsea would have played their first pre-season game in Las Vegas. During the serious stuff, daring to put out content written before a match has been played is usually fraught with danger.

Unless you are doing something niche (like the entire story of Diego Costa’s Chelsea career) your views can soon become old. But unless Chelsea beat Mexican side Club America 20-0 and Timo Werner scores all twenty, I think I’m safe reader in bringing you this without knowledge of what actually happened. Because, it doesn’t matter….. or does it?

When we think of pre-season and its general importance to the season, a lot of the dismissal comes purely from the fact the games we get to watch bare no actual relevance on league position, trophies and reputation. A coach is not going to lose his job for a pretty drab 2-0 defeat to Wolfsberger AC. These are glorified fitness exercises, they are like rehearsals for a West End musical. Or like reading the overly long and clumsy first-draft of a script.

Where was the second act going? That section is irrelevant to the overall arc, do you really need that joke to go on for that long? Or am I just referring to Love and Thunder?

The experimental teams that never get seen again, the endless subs that disrupt the flow of a game dramatically, those fringe players you cannot quite believe are still contracted to the club, soon banished back out on loan.

So by the moment we reach 5.30pm on the 6th of August when Chelsea officially kick-off their Premier League campaign against Everton, a lot of what’s happening now will quickly fade into dust like a post-Thanos snap.

Unless you are weird like me, who actually remembers Diego’s first goal against Olimpija Ljubljana? Eden Hazard’s mazy run against Barca in Maryland? Danny Drinkwater looking like a refined regista against Bournemouth? Rob Green’s penalty heroics against Lyon? Mateja Kezman’s solo-run and finish away at Oxford in 2004?

The results and moments fade into irrelevance for fans, but the impact for coaches and players can be lasting, particularly if preparation is not right or tactical shortcomings are not drilled down into enough.

It feels like coaches at the top level are getting less and less time to refine their tactical approach and experiment in an age of 63 game seasons. Add to that endless international tournaments and the demands for even more games from the sport’s big governing bodies.

At major clubs like Chelsea, where commitments sit beyond domestic football, and with the added intensity of a winter-World Cup in Qatar, by the time Chelsea’s real season gets going, the room for clean weeks with tons of time on the training pitch will feel like a distant memory.

At the elite level all you hear about is “recovery days” just designed to safeguard players as they move from one game to the next.

“The art of sharing, educating and then implementing a foundational way of playing with innovative tactical instruction, alongside the learning and implementation of a football philosophy and its characteristics and concepts." Was the way Dan McCarthy, coach and Chelsea podcaster summarised my question: What the average supporter did not appreciate about pre-season? Speaking to him for a piece I wrote last year.

"It's more in the level details of what can be done tactically and in the fitness, strength, conditioning departments in pre-season compared to the season.

"Pre-season is fundamentally about laying the foundations, the core values and concepts of which you will build on as the season begins and rolls on. Preparing the body and mind for a long season ahead, plenty of strength and fitness work, which allows these players to play at the speed they do on a consistent basis, which turns into maintenance as the season goes.

"Tactically, pre-season is about implementing the style and philosophy, your way of playing, as the season comes, it is tweaked throughout and more time is spent on opposition analysis, which makes time away from your own product. However, balance is key."

In relation to Chelsea, it has been a recent concern of mine the number of games played in pre-season and if it actually is enough?

To my mind, the best Chelsea pre-season was 2014/15. Jose Mourinho’s squad began what would turn out to be a title-winning year with 10 games played in under a month. They were all based in Europe and also came post a summer World Cup in Brazil.

The key new signings Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas began to integrate to life at the club and gain a symbiotic relationship that would create many goals over the next three years.

My connection between a busy pre-season and success might be pretty flimsy as it bases one correlating to another. Not that Chelsea had elite quality, smart additions, a great manager, weakened rivals and a less taxing schedule due to early eliminations in the Champions League and FA Cup.

But if you compare the 10 of 14/15 to the four of the following summer, five counting the Community Shield, that led into the disastrous collapse of 2015/16 that lost Mourinho his job before Christmas and saw the Champions tumble near the relegation zone, eventually finishing tenth.

It was back up to seven the following summer, again after an international tournament, this time with Antonio Conte who would propel Chelsea back up to the summit with a 90-point haul in the 2016/17 season.

However, it was back to five in the summer of 2017, when a summer of failed transfers preceded a pretty miserable campaign that lost Chelsea a Champions League spot and Antonio Conte his job. Although by the end, it appeared neither party wanted the relationship to continue.

I could keep going, but this lack of preparation has been at its most severe across the past two years, mainly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. There was barely any off-season between the end to the 2019/20 campaign which ended for Chelsea on the 9th of August before kicking off the next season at Brighton on the 14th of September.

Thomas Tuchel got a more structured pre-season in 2021 with games against Bournemouth, Arsenal and Spurs – one cancelled in Ireland due to a positive COVID case in the Chelsea camp that forced the squad to come home.

This summer feels like a return to normality, a majority of top European clubs have flown out to different continents to expand the brand whilst gaining the benefits of warm conditions. Chelsea will go up to four games this summer, with an Italian getaway to Udinese the last scheduled fixture before the trip to Merseyside.

None of this really matters, but it does to those inside the game, but it doesn’t really matter… does it?

Thanks for reading. Check out my videos on Chelsea on my YouTube channel, and read more of my work at football.london

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