This might very well be the worst Chelsea side since Jose Mourinho’s final year with the club. Despite being pumped with $300M+ and two high quality managers, this Chelsea roster has continued to underperform as the club currently sits in 10th place midway through the season.
What a mess Todd Boehly has put Chelsea in.
Not only has the new owner foolishly dumped €300M+ on players that the team doesn’t need and fired the clubs’ Champions League winning manager after only two months into the season, but he has also allowed the club to fester and rot during his extremely short reign as the team now finds itself in 10th place and 10 points off the Top-4. And its only January!
That tepid 1-0 loss to Manchester City yesterday displayed everything that is wrong with the Chelsea side. Their strikers can’t score, their midfielders are getting overrun by the opposition’s more densely packed midfields, and the defenders are always looking over their shoulders at their replacements on the bench and fearful of making a mistake as there is too much competition.
If Chelsea was even a little bit more courageous and confident, they would have beaten City. Pep Guardiola got away with making some massive tactical blunders in the first half as Chelsea came really close to scoring on a few of their attacks down the wings.
But the lack of a goalscoring threat up top is what did Chelsea in once again this season as City was able to hold onto the 1-0 lead Riyad Mahrez gave them in the 63′ minute to walk out of Stamford Bridge with a relatively easy win.
And it’s all Todd Boehly’s fault.
Practically everything Boehly has done has either not helped the Blues or has hindered the team in a dramatic way. Ever since the early days of Thomas Tuchel’s reign at the club, Chelsea have suffered from a sever lack of goalscoring from its strikers and attacking players.
Whether it was Romelu Lukaku, Timo Werner, Tammy Abraham, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, or Kai Havertz being forced to play the False 9 role, Chelsea was not getting enough goals from their “would-be” main goal source.
And that was a major reason why Boehly fired Tuchel after Chelsea’s lackluster 1-0 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League back in September as Chelsea, which is quite obvious by the score of the game, were not putting the ball in the back of the net against weaker opposition.
So, how did Boehly decide to fix this issue? Well, with this latest Benoit Badiashile (center-back) signing from Monaco for €38M, the Blues have now spent €221.70M on four defenders (Marc Cucurella: €65.30M, Benoit Badiashile: €38.00M, Kalidou Koulibaly: €38.00M, Wesley Fofona: €80.40M) and €3M on a loan for defensive midfielder Denis Zakaria in two transfer windows!
Does that make any sense at all?!? Sure, Boehly did bring in two strikers, a decrepit and practical mercenary Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Barcelona and youth talent David Datrano Fofana from Molde, but he spent just €24M on the pair. For a guy who has dished out €331.99M and counting since becoming sole owner in late May, that’s tantamount to intentional neglect.
What was Boehly thinking to spend almost €250M on a defense that was not only the 3rd best in goals against (33 GA) in the Premier League last season, but also consists of great players like Thiago Silva, Reece James, Ben Chilwell, Trevoh Chalobah, and Cesar Azpilicueta.
Now, I know he had to spend something on improving the defense after Antonio Rudiger went to Real Madrid and Andreas Christensen left for Barcelona, but app. €250M is utterly insane.
Any normal, frugal owner would have bought just one of the three center backs Boehly brought in, while using some of that €200M or so left of the war chest to buy Erling Haaland or Robert Lewandowski or one of the many great strikers in the world over the summer.
Yet, for some strange reason, Boehly enjoys throwing around his money like there’s no tomorrow as he’s now set to sign Mykhailo Mudryk for €80M or so from Dynamo Kiev and perhaps Enzo Fernandez from Benfica for €120M, both of whom are not strikers. Plus, it looks like he’s getting ready to sack Graham Potter after just 4 months (1 of which was during the World Cup break).
If either one of those transfers are completed, that would bring Chelsea’s overall net spend since Boehly became owner to at least €411.99M. Is Financial Fair Play still a thing?
Chelsea is in a raging, uncontrollably whirlwind with Boehly at the wheel.
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