Chelsea fans may opt for perspective for their own sanity. Unlike their north London rivals, their club is not facing the real prospect of relegation – things could always be worse. But the reality is Tuesday night’s spineless display at Brighton took Chelsea to a low not sunk to since the sinking of the Titanic. This is a club in crisis.
Anguish at the Amex was only the latest blow in a cataclysmic run of form, one that has occurred at the most important stage of the season. A run of five league losses on the bounce, all without scoring a goal, has all but ended the Blues’ hopes of finishing inside the top five.
The drop-off under Liam Rosenior in recent weeks has coincided with the ramping up of fan protests against Chelsea’s ownership. “This is not about short-term results,” a Chelsea Supporters’ Trust spokesperson said. “It is about trust, and at this moment in time, that trust has not been earned.”
There are now more fractures than ever within a team that has had £1.87bn pumped into it since the arrival of BlueCo four years ago. Top players are opening the door to moves away as the club nears another dismal finish in this maligned era, which has only delivered Champions League qualification once. So who is to blame?
When assessing Chelsea’s failings of recent years, most will point the finger straight to the top.
BlueCo’s strategy has been nothing short of disastrous since taking over, as first evidenced solely by performance. A team that was once branded the “blue billion-pound bottle jobs” are close to becoming the two-billion-pound bottle jobs. For all their investment in players, Chelsea should now be fighting for the title – but after four years, they still can’t safely secure a place at Europe’s top table.
Central to their transfer shortcomings is the heavy emphasis on acquiring young talent. More than £1bn has been spent on players 24 and under, having splashed out more on teenagers than the rest of the Premier League’s “big six” combined. It’s a strategy harnessed by many a Fifa Career Mode player over the years – buying footballers with high potential under the assumption it will be reached – but in the real game, BlueCo has proved it as largely ineffective.
Of the 52 signings sanctioned by Todd Boehly since the summer of 2022, just four have gone on to become indispensable: Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Marc Cucurella and Cole Palmer. Brazilian sensation Estevao looks set to become a fifth rare success story for the ownership once he’s fully unleashed – the 18-year-old is still currently having his minutes managed. This hit rate does not justify the five sporting directors – primarily Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, supported by Joe Shields, Sam Jewell and Dave Fallows – that formulate the club’s recruitment.
And from the wheat, there’s a whole lot of chaff. A raft of big-money signings have simply gone on to become fringe players; a trend that again shows issues with recruitment rather than the players themselves. The likes of Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia – signed for a combined £124m – almost instantly became glued to the treatment table, raising questions about how either of them passed their medicals. And when it comes to all that youth investment, the majority are shipped out without making a dent on the team; their only real impact being a collective one, as managers have wrapped their heads around an unbelievably bloated squad. It’s something that Enzo Maresca was vocal about, leading to the creation of a “bomb squad”.
Some of these youngsters are admittedly sold for a profit despite barely playing, which you could call good business. But when taking a glance at the books, you can’t really give BlueCo much credit in that regard.
A report by The Athletic highlights that Chelsea’s operating losses under BlueCo over the past three years total £689m – or £692,000 every single day. BlueCo has taken on £1.39bn in debt to fund its activities. Crucially, the return on investment just doesn’t seem to be there, either on or off the pitch – Chelsea’s commercial income of £200.9m trails their nearest “big six” rival by over £60m. Behdad Eghbali has previously made the point that the club were poorly managed from a commercial point of view under Roman Abramovich. Stones in glass houses.
The pitfalls of Chelsea’s operation warrant the protests that have intensified in recent weeks. It is undeniable that this is the root cause of their long-term problems. But for this particular crisis in performance, other individuals must be subject to accountability.
Some of the club’s top stars have not exactly helped the cause with their off-field antics. Fernandez wound up with a two-match internal ban for courting Real Madrid in an interview. The Argentinian, who cost Chelsea £106.8m and could very well leave for significantly less than that in the summer, is back with the squad but looked despondent with the club’s state of affairs after full-time against Brighton. He was shrugging his shoulders to the away fans, almost as if to ask: “What more can I do?” BlueCo may argue that toeing the line would have helped.
Cucurella, meanwhile, has publicly questioned the project, namely the club’s decision to fire Maresca mid-season, and is this week facing further scrutiny after reports that his barber leaked the team news for the Brighton trip. “[Cole] Palmer and Joao Pedro injured tonight. There’s your exclusive,” he posted on X, accompanied by an image of the left-back getting his hair cut.
Blame also must lie in the dugout. Rosenior is a young manager at 41 and feels a victim of being groomed for this role by BlueCo – from the outset, it seemed this step up had come way too soon. He was thrown into the deep end thanks to the petulance of his predecessor, with Maresca’s press conference rants putting his bosses in a very difficult position. For all his managerial prowess, the Italian left having created instability.
But despite a promising start in the hot seat, Rosenior’s inexperience has been shown by how his team have responded to adversity. Past weeks have been defined by muddled tactics and a lack of fight. There is now speculation that he has lost the dressing room, something which may have coincided with him ditching his policy of defending his players no matter what. “To be even accused of throwing the towel in is unacceptable,” he fumed after the Brighton loss.
Whether the Englishman makes it to the beginning of next season still at the helm now feels a very uncertain bet. Chelsea’s hierarchy have held talks over whether to part ways with Rosenior just four months after he was brought in as BlueCo’s own pet project. But that’s inherently what it comes down to – Chelsea are in this mess because of the decisions of their owners.
This is their making, this is their fault – and the project has reached breaking point. BlueCo is already fighting a civil war against an enraged fanbase in Strasbourg, whose supporters loathe their perceived “pawn of Chelsea” status under multi-club ownership. A similar mutiny is brewing at Stamford Bridge.