Chelsea FC are a club in decline, and with Tottenham likely to be relegated to the Championship in a matter of weeks, the Blues will be looking to do anything to avoid inheriting the infamous “Spursy” label in their rival’s potential Premier League exit.
The West London club has endured yet another disappointing season, failing to live up to expectations after having spent big in the summer of last year.
This seems to be becoming a trend for Chelsea, who have spent a whopping $2.7 billion in just four years since owners BlueCo took over.
Where there have been some seemingly successful acquisitions such as Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Cole Palmer in the past few seasons, there has also been a lot of unnecessary spending on players that are not needed and that have actually been detrimental to the club’s development.
Wasteful Signings:
Raheem Sterling – Kalidou Koulibaly, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – Alejandro Garnacho – Mykhailo Mudryk – Liam Delap – Malang Sarr – Axel Disasi – Benoit Badiashille – Deivid Washington – Christopher Nkunku – David Datro Fofana – Facundo Buonanotte – Mamadou Sarr – Jamie Gittens – Cesare Casadei – Lesley Ugochukwu – Carney Chukwuemeka – Jadon Sancho – Filip Jorgensen – Tosin Adarabioyo – Renato Veiga
It’s not only player signings that have been the problem for the Blues, however.
More problematic has been the managerial crisis that has loomed and continues to loom over the club.:
Thomas Tuchel -> Graham Potter -> Bruno Saltor (Interim) -> Frank Lampard (Interim) -> Mauricio Pochettino -> Enzo Maresca -> Callum McFarlane (Interim) -> Liam Rosenior (Present)
Pochettino and Enzo Maresca walked away from the club, the latter even choosing to leave without a pay-off due to apparent impossible working conditions as the Chelsea had boss.
With mediocre league results during the course of the BlueCo ownership, and the only titles won being the Club World Cup and the Europa Conference League, Chelsea look to be slipping away from their previous reputation as Premier League and European giants.
Here’s what I think needs to be done to save the club from imploding:
Smart and ambitious signings are needed that push and challenge the rest of the squad to improve – not 16-20 year-old unknown quantities that you would only dream of signing on Football Manager or EAFC Career Mode.
Signing players such as Kenan Yildiz, who has proved himself at Juventus and for his country (Turkey) for the left wing position, would be a drastic improvement and would provide a balance of youth and clinicality.
Furthermore, in positions such as goalkeeper, centre-back and striker, experience and maturity is massively needed.
Players like Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski (Striker), Everton’s Jordan Pickford (Goalkeeper) and Manchester City’s John Stones (Centre-Back) would instantly elevate the level at Chelsea and are the type of signings that the current owners for some reason refrain from making – even though they are the kind of players you need to be looking at buying to win titles.
A Kenan Yildiz may be rather expensive, but when mixed with free/cheap signings with more experience, you get the most out of your money.
Chelsea hasn’t done this. In fact, in the past year, they have signed 3 young left wingers in Garnacho, Gittens and Quenda, none of whom have yet to prove themselves as reliable and consistently elite players in world football.
Of course, with that being said, outgoings need to be made, in the form of exits for players like Delap, Garnacho, Badiashile, Chalobah, Tosin, and Robert Sanchez.
Finally, whoever the manager is, give them full control and say over signings and squad decisions.
It has been reported that the Chelsea board has vetoed squad selection decisions, transfer requests and even the manager’s decision to rest and rotate players in favour of boosting market value for profitability reasons (which has in turn led to a wealth of problems, be those injuries, drama, player-manager fallouts and more).
Until all of this is sorted out and the model changes, protests will continue, and the club will destroy itself.
Let’s see what the owners actually decide to do this summer.
Drastic change is needed.
