Todd Boehly has spent £350m to reshape Chelsea’s squad and made it worse

ETIHAD STADIUM – Graham Potter screwed his face taut and stared intently at the video nasty playing out in front of him on the dug-out monitor.

Moments before, Kai Havertz had swung a rogue arm in the way of an incoming corner. Referee Robert Jones had missed the blatant penalty but VAR hadn’t. Exasperated, Potter turned from the TV and uttered two words that might just end up as an epitaph for his ill-fated Stamford Bridge spell: “F__k me”.

That was half an hour in and it wasn’t even remotely close to the nadir for Chelsea and Potter on a day that brings big questions directly to Todd Boehly’s door. It is admirable to want to give a manager time, but whatever the big picture looks like, Potter won’t survive many more afternoons as chastening as this. A team firmly embedded in Europe’s elite before he arrived are going backwards at an alarming rate.

Potter’s Chelsea were utterly dreadful here, serving up a ragged, listless performance that suggested his players are still no closer to understanding the framework of the system that became their manager’s trademark at Brighton.

There he was able to successfully construct a team and style of play that was effective away from the limelight. But there are no such privileges at Stamford Bridge, where the transfer fees are large and the stakes even higher.

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Defeat against a Manchester City side in this sort of form is no disgrace but elements of their performance were. Potter reasoned afterwards that Pep Guardiola’s team are capable of making it look like players aren’t trying due to their “exceptional positional structure” but that argument doesn’t cut much ice when senior men like Havertz and Kalidou Koulibaly are letting the side down with performances strewn with such rank carelessness.

Potter will get more time to prove himself but imploring supporters to trust the process won’t wash when his plans are unpicked so easily. Chelsea are all pretty patterns in their own third but seem incapable of imposing their will on opponents in the opposing third. That’s a big problem.

The natives are unconvinced and increasingly restless. Chelsea’s travelling support drained from the Etihad when the third goal went in late in the first half, but those who remained sung for Thomas Tuchel, the unfairly deposed manager, and hailed defenestrated former owner Roman Abramovich.

If the latter was tasteless, the implication of those songs were clear both for the manager and an ownership group whose honeymoon period is well and truly over.

Boehly hasn’t said a whole lot in public since biting off more than he could chew at a sports conference in the Big Apple in September. Back then he told an audience in New York that the Premier League needed an all-star game, that a relegation play-off could be an inspired idea and refused an invitation to drive a stake in the twitching corpse of the European Super League.

Perhaps he should concentrate on matters closer to home before solving English football’s supposed ills, for this mess is not Potter’s alone. His consortium have spent the thick end of £350m reshaping Chelsea’s squad and made it worse.

Boehly has sanctioned a £350m spending spree at Chelsea (Photo: Getty)

The club is undergoing root and branch reform under its new management and the jury is out on the long-term impact of that. But what we have seen in terms of recruitment has been distinctly unimpressive, despite the eye-watering fees.

Marc Cucurella, signed for £60m, sat on the bench here alongside the latest big money signing, £32m Benoit Badiashile. Either side of them were Denis Zakara, on loan from Juventus but with a £30m deal lined up, last week’s new signing David Datro Fofana and £20m teenager Carney Chukwuemeka, who all came on in the second half.

What is the big idea here apart from waving a chequebook around? The eye-watering fees disguise how average most of their signings have been. New technical director Christopher Vivell has his work cut out.

Chelsea’s last twelve matches under Potter

• Brentford 0-0 Chelsea
• Chelsea 1-1 Man United
• RB Salzburg 1-2 Chelsea
• Brighton 4-1 Chelsea
• Chelsea 2-1 Dinamo Zagreb
• Chelsea 0-1 Arsenal
• Man City 2-0 Chelsea
• Newcastle 1-0 Chelsea
• Chelsea 2-0 Bournemouth
• Nottingham Forest 1-1 Chelsea
• Chelsea 0-1 Man City
• Man City 4-0 Chelsea

It really isn’t as difficult as they’ve made it look. Much is made of Manchester City’s deep pockets but they’ve moved on from the days of lavish spending to a more focused transfer policy that utilises a network of some of the sharpest minds in the game.

Of their recent purchases, they spent a mere £14m to prise Julian Alvarez from River Plate and £15m on Manuel Akanji. Both played in a much-changed City side that delivered a performance that should send shivers down the spine of league leaders Arsenal and the rest of Europe. Riyad Mahrez’s stunning free-kick set the ball rolling on a performance that left Guardiola purring afterwards.

Make no mistake – despite a couple of hiccups here and there this season they are firmly in the running to win the quadruple this season.

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