Since their £4.25 billion takeover of Chelsea was completed in May 2022, a Todd Boehly-led consortium has presided over four transfer windows. The numbers from these are little short of staggering.
Across 2022/23, the club signed 14 new players, plus two loanees, to the tune of £611.4m, while selling/releasing 13 first-team stars. A further seven were sent out on loan.
Last summer and this January meanwhile, the Blues signed 12 new players, this time shelling out a more conservative £467.8m. A remarkable 14 were sold or moved on, some of whom have won all manner of trophies with the club. A further 13 were loaned out.
This means that in just two short years, Chelsea have signed 28 new players, at a cost of well over a billion pounds. They have sold or moved on 27 players, shifting another 20 out on loan.
Is it any wonder therefore that Mauricio Pochettino didn’t have an earthly clue who Malang Sarr was when asked about him three months into his tenure.
Amidst all of the comings and goings, the French Under 21 international could have been the new kitman for all the Argentine knew.
Then we come to the managers.
First there was Thomas Tuchel who was sacked just a few weeks deep into the new dawn. He was replaced by Graham Potter whose appointment proved to be disastrous.
Next up, Frank Lampard was asked to return and scoop out water from the sinking vessel for a few months before Chelsea lured Pochettino to West London at the conclusion of last season.
In the last 24 months, the Blues have had more managers than Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal put together, a trio who pertinently are at the forefront of the betting to secure a league title, like Chelsea used to.
Factor in too the unprecedented strategy of affording players with eight-year contracts to avoid breaching FFP rules and clearly this is a club going against all accepted convention in recent times. It has embraced instability. It has chosen chaos.
And naturally enough such chaos has had a detrimental impact on results, dramatically so.
Towards the tail-end of 2023 a remarkable statistic came to light, that revealed only Almeria, Werder Bremen and Empoli had lost more games across Europe’s big five leagues in the previous calendar year.
It was a haemorrhaging of results and opportunities that placed them 12th last May and mid-table once again this time out.
It feels like an awfully long time ago when Chelsea were crowned champions of Europe, but it was post-pandemic. It was 2021.
In this context then, there is really no other way of looking at it but to decree Project Chelsea under Todd Boehly’s ownership as a great big failure.
And yet increasingly there are signs that all of this trauma – so much of it self-inflicted – could soon be referred to in the past tense.
Most significantly, results have improved with 1.8 points picked up from their last seven league outings compared to one point-per-game in the seven prior.
Performances too have been upgraded, as evidenced by their recent 1-1 draw at the Etihad where they were excellent throughout.
Pochettino can set up a counter-attacking side as good as anyone and here, for arguably the first time since his arrival, what we witnessed was his masterplan executed to the letter.
There was plenty of spirit on display too, with defenders celebrating last-ditch tackles and high-fiving successful passages of play.
Staying with that draw against City, how starkly it contrasted with Chelsea’s victory at Spurs back in early November, despite the comprehensive score-line of the latter.
That evening, Tottenham had two players sent off but persisted with an extremely high defensive line, an open goal to any team worth their salt.
Yet time and again, Chelsea players strayed offside, ignoring their manager’s demands to be cuter and string some passes together.
It left Pochettino pulling at his hair and gesticulating wildly to his backroom staff. He was visibly shocked at their naivety, a lack of game-intelligence that was there for all to see.
That was then though, and this is now.
It is not just a collective cohesion that has been encouraging of late. Individually several players have stepped up, finally willing to show for the cause.
Cole Palmer has impressed from the off, while Raheem Sterling’s output this term has generally been decent, but we can expect even better from them now a fully functioning midfield of Caicedo, Gallagher and Fernendes is coming to fruition.
A fit and roaming Christopher Nkunku to play off up front is also a huge plus.
At the back, an inability to keep a clean sheet continues, but with Disasi growing into a leader, and Gusto and Colwill putting in eight out of ten performances most weeks that is a situation that will surely resolve itself.
Furthermore, Chelsea have reached a League Cup final, a notable achievement no matter the outcome this weekend because this is a club that defines itself on silverware. On success.
Presently, the football odds have them finishing nowhere this term, with top four beyond them and top six a distant dream, but perhaps that matters much less than it has in previous months, when crisis hovered over Stamford Bridge and when performances were poor.
This feels like the start of something, who knows perhaps even something exciting and in turn that brings about a revision of our thinking.
It is too early to decree Project Chelsea under Todd Boehly’s ownership as a great big failure.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
