Where will Chelsea be in the next 5-10 years?

Interesting article from Economist that focuses on the business side of the game.

My key takeaways:

- I don't disagree that football should practise Moneyball (the baseball movie about a team that uses pure data analysis to assemble a team). Apart from it's huge emotional / entertainment value, it needs to be grounded in solid financial discipline.

- in a way, I think we are already doing it by buying loads of young players. I don't always think these players are bought because they have Chelsea potential. Simply, if we can buy/sell with a profit, and these players never ever play for Chelsea, that's fine. Just business. Other clubs do it too (Liverpool made £16m profit on Solanke in about 1 year).

- similarly, we should consider selling players if the price/value Gap is marginal vs a younger player. You can only have creation with destruction. I enjoyed and am grateful to Hazard but if it's time, it's time.

- perhaps where we fail is to give the group of players a proper chance. There will always be a system to filter the cream to the top. But management needs to work with coaches/managers to provide proper incentive to blood these youngsters. This season, we have RLC and CHO although CHO playing more seems "forced" by circumstances. Hopefully, we get a right mixture of a couple more next season (TA, RJ, Ampadu, etc) + RLC/CHO.

However, putting in a proper management system like this takes years. So just cross fingers and pray?

- what does this mean? Proper DoF, coach that understands need to blood 2-3 youngsters per season, stick to 30-year extension policy(broken now by Luiz). In this light, signing someone like Higuain does not make sense unless he's almost free.

Anyways, lots of food for thought. I do think our Board understands this - but proof always in the pudding. Execution is key.

https://www.economist.com/game-theory/2019/05/12/how-manchester-city-came-to-rule-english-football