Insider: Chelsea sporting directors will change transfer policy after January mistake | OneFootball

As Chelsea’s results gets worse and the frustration that has bubbled under for so many years rises to the surface once again, there are two people taking a lot of heat.

Co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart are the obvious people to blame for the club’s current struggle. Changing managers hasn’t helped, buying loads of new players hasn’t helped, and the owners aren’t making direct football decisions (at least not many of them). So as unhappy fans thrash around and look at who is responsible for the decisions which have brought the team to this point, they inevitably reach the sporting directors.

For anyone hoping to see them ousted, the news isn’t good. Liam Twomey’s piece for the Athletic today is basically a 2000 word reminder of how powerful and deeply embedded they are. While fans are judging them solely on the progress (or lack thereof) in the first team, those above them are judging them on a far wider set of criteria.

Twomey points out that their “continued presence”, having beaten out competition for power in the form of Christopher Vivell, is a “powerful signal of alignment.”

Admission of January squad management mistakes

Joao Felix celebrates a goal for AC Milan. (Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images)

There is an admission that too many first team players were allowed to go on loan, and hilariously Twomey claims that “larger number of outfield players will be maintained in future seasons as a result.” It seems that they’re happy to leak admissions of some of their own failings to the media as a way of showing they’re willing to learn from their mistakes.

While “continuation of this [bad] form may even impact Maresca’s viability as head coach,” it “will not erode the ownership’s faith in Winstanley and Stewart.”

That is very much not what a lot of fans want to hear.