Spending nearly €350M+ in January alone does tend to win you the transfer window. Chelsea have blown open all January transfer spending records with their historic €350M+ spending spree, though I’m not so sure it will get them into the Top-4 as they hope.
It’s great to bring in young, new, exciting players…but anything not in moderation will generally backfire.
Chelsea and Todd Boehly have taken the transfer window by storm ever since the American owner took over the North London club as in just two windows (approximately 6 months), the Blues have spent over $600M on new players alone. That extraordinary fee does not even include these new players’ wages, the club expenses, staff wages, taxes, travel expenses, etc.
Now, I will say that Chelsea have made some great signings (or should be great players) in the January transfer window as they have managed to solve their midfield, winger, and defensive issues by bringing in former Shakhtar Donetsk superstar Mykhailo Mudryk (€70M), Malo Gusto (€30M) from Olympic Lyon, Benoît Badiashile (€38M) from Monaco, loaned in Joao Felix (€11M) from Atletico Madrid, the talented 18-year-old Andrey Santos (€12.5M) from Vasco de Garma, young Noni Madueke (€35M) from PSV Eindhoven, and star DM Enzo Fernadez (€121M) from Benficia.
Clearly, these are all good players and have the ability to seriously tear up the Premier League for their new club, but does anyone else see the problem with all of these young, relatively inexperienced signings? How are all of these guys going to gel quickly enough with themselves and the already-established Chelsea squad players to help their club catch up in the Top-4 race?
As everyone already knows, Chelsea currently sits in 10th place on 29 points, which is a full 10 points behind 4th place Manchester United (39 PTS) and 3rd place Newcastle United (39 PTS).
Plus, the Blues have extremely important and difficult Premier League games against Fulham (7th), West Ham United (16th), and Tottenham (5th) as three of their next four league games, while there’s also two legs against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League intertwined between said matchups.
This is the most important stretch in Chelsea’s season to date as if they lose the tie against Dortmund and don’t pick up at least 6 points against the three teams listed above, then they will finish their season without a trophy and most likely outside the Top-4. Man United, Tottenham, Newcastle United, Liverpool, Fulham, and Brighton are just too strong of competitors for Chelsea to overtake with anymore early-season losses.
So, now Graham Potter, who only has experience at the lower levels of English football with substantially smaller squads, is now tasked with managed over 30 senior professionals to make up 10 points on teams that have been fantastic all season long. I hope I’m wrong for Chelsea fans’ sakes, but I don’t think Potter has enough magic wands to pull this off (okay, bad pun).
In other words, everyone is super inexperienced, from the players, managers, and even the ownership hierarchy, and that will undoubtedly hurt them down the line.
Furthermore, what happens if some of these players don’t work out for the club? Personally, I see most of these guys being huge hits in the Premier League, but guys like Fernandez, Mudryk, Badiashile, Santos, and Madueke all have 5+ year-long contracts that will be paying them anywhere from €75k-€300k a week, respectively, in wages.
These players all better be superstars for the blue of Chelsea or else Todd Boehly will have an unprecedent disaster on his hands.
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