Nothing says failing superpower like a Europa Conference League play-off first leg tie against Servette.
The best in the world the Swiss are not, which was essentially Enzo Maresca’s default explanation to account for Chelsea’s opening Premier League defeat to champions Manchester City on Sunday.
That excuse would not be available to Maresca should Chelsea fall a second time in four days at Stamford Bridge. They couldn’t, could they?
Still no Raheem Sterling in the A-list squad submitted to Uefa. No Ben Chilwell or Wesley Fofana either as Maresca wrestles with a transfer policy that has seen 11 new players arrive already this summer.
Arsene Wenger’s optimal transfer strategy at Arsenal was three additions max per summer window. Any more might be disruptive, he argued, killing the vibe.
Granted that was eons ago. The vibe was already terminal before the imminent arrival of No 11, Joao Felix. Conor Gallagher’s on-off transfer to Atletico Madrid and Sterling’s plaintive scream following his exclusion from the match-day squad against City told us that much.
Sterling was the first signing in a tidal wave of transfers begun by the American banking fraternity that assumed ownership of the club following the enforced departure of Roman Abramovich.
At least under the Russian capitalist, making money was not the primary goal, legitimising it was. The best way for Abramovich to gain an acceptable foothold in London was to flood the boardroom with trophies. He didn’t need to make a profit.
Under Todd Boehly and the Clearlake Capital investment group, trophies would be nice but are not necessarily uppermost among objectives. They would never express it thus, of course.
That would be tantamount to standing in the Matthew Harding waving a Spurs scarf. As the Glazer family has found at Manchester United, any dividend is payable as long as you stick a Carabao or FA Cup on the table episodically.
But are Chelsea a serious club anymore? Jamie Carragher thinks not. The seams of his ever-tightening sweater were having to work even harder the moment the topic turned to Chelsea on Sky’s Monday Night Football show. Don’t go, he advised those minded to take the Boehly dollar, biceps swelling, chest expanding as he hammered home the point.
It was the good fortune of Chelsea supporters that the needs of their former owner coincided with their desires. By financing the squad at a raging loss Abramovich created the illusion of benevolent ownership and dragged a team from the brink of collapse under Ken Bates into the vanguard of European football, standard bearers mixing it with Barca, Bayern and Real Madrid.
In his first year Boehly took Chelsea from third in 2022 to 12th in 2023. Last term they finished three points clear of Newcastle and Manchester United in sixth. Had they matched the two United’s point for point over the final five matches they would have ended in eighth, which for most of the season felt like the best they might achieve.
However, Mauricio Pochettino at last hit upon a rhythm, and the remarkable Cole Palmer did the rest, helping Chelsea sign off with five successive victories.
Remarkably, that was not enough to save Pochettino, who struggled all season to build a team from the ever-evolving constituent parts. An incredible 12 players arrived in his first summer, which augmented the 15 who joined during Boehly’s first season. Felix is addition No 36, and there is more than a week to go in the summer window.
It would be odd to argue that success is not part of the equation when you sign two players topping a combined £200m, Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo. That neither has shone is besides the point. They were highly prized and Chelsea got their men. And which club would not want Pedro Neto and Palmer cutting in off their wings?
There is a clear duality in play here, which frames Stamford Bridge as a talent factory designed with profit in mind as well as a plausible trophy bank.
The model, currently led by twin sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, follows the American example in baseball, NFL and NBA, where players are little more than commodities to be traded. The good ones are lionised, the flops issued with a one-way ticket to Palookaville.
Thus is the Boehly code rooted in its own meTrophircantile logic. According to Sky Sports’ transfer unit, Chelsea have 42 players contracted for a total of 191 years. The average contract length is 4.5 years on wages that are believed to be within £60k-70k per week, below the £72k Premier league average. The players are incentivised. Do your stuff and the rewards are there.
The buy-in-bulk-sell-at-a-premium policy was, of course, established under Abramovich, and has merit in a market-driven space.
You only need a few academy graduates like Gallagher or Ian Maatsen to finance a voracious transfer spend. The Boehly regime has merely refined and tweaked it to hitherto unseen levels.
Boehly would argue the policy represents the best chance of keeping pace with City in this age of stringent financial accountability. What we have yet to see is any evidence of success on the pitch.
Players are unsettled and supporters restless. At some point Boehly must prioritise the league table over the balance sheet, commit to a leader and a squad that allows the necessary unity and identity to develop.
Right now, none can say what kind of team Chelsea are or hope to be. And that, ultimately, is bad for business.
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