Since Roman Abramovich sold Chelsea to Todd Boehly over the 2022 war in Ukraine in Russia, Chelsea has been able to spend a huge amount of 1.06 billion pounds over the past two years under FFP rules.
In the process, they replaced Thomas Tuchel, who won the Champions League, and appointed Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino, managers of Brighton and Southampton, Tottenham, and Paris. Despite these unconventional moves, they did not even reach the Big Six, let alone win the league, In the 22-23 season, he ranked 12th, showing the worst performance in the club's history.
The sluggishness of the 22-23 season is considered to be a number of adaptation issues, including manager change and large-scale player reorganization, and the 23-24 season continued with Pochettino, but after 21 rounds, which is 2/3 of the league, his performance is ranked 9th, showing little change from last season.
Why is 1.06 billion pounds spent over two years, but still sluggish?
1. Owner who doesn’t know about soccer
The story within the stadium is important, but the biggest change in the two years was by far the change of owner.
The manager's replacement and 1.06 billion pounds were spent after the owner's change. He has been the owner of the club since June of the 21-22 season, but this period is already at the end of the season, as everyone knows. Chelsea finished third in the 21-22 season. Considering that his performance in the next two seasons is 12th and 9th (ongoing), it seems certain that there have been a lot of changes in a really short period of time. Of course, it's not a good direction.
Speaking of Todd Boehly, the previous owner, Roman, managed as a football fan, whereas Todd Boehly is different. Of course, he is interested in sports, but he is more of a manager than a soccer fan. Already, he is the co-owner of the MLB's LA Dodgers and the NBA's LA Lakers. Daniel Levy of rival club Tottenham is a representative businessman's image as a chairman with a similar feeling. However, Todd Boehly is the owner of the club.
There are reasons why an average soccer team distinguishes between the owner and the president. The reason is that there are many things to care about. The owner is nothing but a place to give investment to the team. That is all he has to do. However, the chairman's position is different. The chairman must give permission for the transfer of players and put a lot of effort into various facilities and financial management. In particular, soccer, unlike basketball and baseball, is even busier as there are two transfer windows a year. This is why a person who is interested in soccer should be the chairman. Todd Boehly doesn't seem to be a chairman who knows much about soccer, based on his moves so far. Just by looking at Thomas Tuchel's interview, replacing his Champions League-winning coach and appointing Graham Potter, who has little experience in big clubs, and his recruitment history, you can see how much he doesn't know about football. The story of the transfer will be covered in detail in the next part.
2. Stupid transfers.
Chelsea's problem is that they spent 1.06 billion pounds and did not have a clear A-list recruitment. Let's go back in time and start with the summer transfer window of the 22-23 season. It started with Raheem Sterling from Manchester City, Kalidou Koulibaly from Napoli, and Carney Chukwuemeka from Villa's mega prospect. However, all A-class players such as Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha, Jules Koundé, and Plan A players moved to Barcelona, and they had to recruit players who fit the position. This process was a problem. Although Plan B was very different from Plan A, it can be said that panic buying became a problem as the transfer market time was tight. Marc Cucurella, who can see left-sided defenders and left-center defenders, was hired by Leicester for 62 million pounds, central defender Wesley Fofana for 69.5 million pounds, and Aubameyang for 10 million pounds It did fill the gap to some extent,
Raheem Sterling, Fofana, and Cucurella were not enough to be definitive A-listers, while Aubameyang and Koulibaly were presented as problems with the possibility of age-induced degradation, which was indeed seen in the 22-23 season. Chelsea spent 300 million pounds in the summer alone,
The results did not come out, which led to panic buying in the winter transfer market. It will recruit 360 million pounds in the winter transfer market in the 22-23 season. It is not enough to spend a total of 120 million pounds on players who have not even been verified in the big league, such as Dartro Popanya, Andrey Santos, Noni Madueke, and Marlo Gusto.
He invested 10 million pounds in renting Joao Felix alone, invested 100 million pounds in Mudryk, whose sense of play had deteriorated due to the suspension of the league, and hired Enzo Fernandez, who was said to be the best prospect at the time, for 120 million pounds ahead of the conclusion of the transfer market, showing a total of 360 million pounds spent on the winter transfer market.
The stupid transfer wasn't just for players. Just by looking at the change of coach, you can see how stupid the team is. The start was by far the replacement of Thomas Tuchel. It was a tremendous achievement to win the Champions League, He was dismissed for a brief slump. Of course, I think it is appropriate to be replaced because of the poor performance, but Chelsea's problem has always been finding a replacement. Several big names have come under fire since replacing Thomas Tuchel, but Chelsea was Graham Potter, who showed good performance at Brighton as the next manager. But in the end, it was very bad for Chelsea. As a result, he had the club's worst winning percentage in 17 games, and it was pointed out that none of the performance and problems of Thomas Tuchel's poor performance were supplemented, and he was eventually replaced due to poor performance. The problem is, that Graham Potter's contract was long, so he had to pay a huge penalty. The problem is that this replacement was also carried out without a plan, and Frank Lampard once again took over as manager, not a tactician. As an interim manager, fans did not take much of a stand over the appointment, but there were also public opinions about whether there was a reason to appoint Lampard at the end of the season, and the fact that he fostered youngsters like Mason Mount at Chelsea and showed the role of legend in uniting the team, but even this appointment ended in a fiasco.
Not only did he not control the locker room because he was a squad with not many youth backgrounds, but as far as he was from a tactician, he failed to make short-term changes to the team and ended the season in 12th place.
Since Lampard's end of his tenure, there have been many names mentioned once again for Chelsea's managerial job. However, it was none other than Mauricio Pochettino who was elected. So far, he is also a failed coach.
In fact, his career as a leader was all about finishing second in the Champions League at Tottenham, winning one league in Paris, winning one league cup, and winning one French Super Cup. Even this championship was actually a failure, as it was a win with unlimited capital with the best offensive lineup of the time, NMM (Neymar, Mbappe, Messi). There is no tactical feature in PSG, and of course, the fans had no choice but to revolt when they appointed a manager who was dismissed for poor performance. Although he made his debut at Chelsea and played a good game or two, Chelsea is currently in ninth place and far from their big six. Looking back on these failed recruits and panic buying, we can see why Chelsea is in ninth place with 1.06 billion pounds spent.
Not all of the reasons for the decline in performance are included in this article, but it is clear that Chelsea, one of the big six, has not been able to advance to the European match immediately after the change of owner, and I still feel that the team has not adapted to the big changes that have come to the team,
I think this has had the biggest impact on the decline in performance. It is worth paying attention to whether Chelsea will be able to rise again.
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