Chelsea has spent well over £1bn in the transfer market over the past 12 months, yet after two Premier League matches so far this term, the Blues are yet to win.
Chelsea has almost conducted an unprecedented football experiment over the course of the past 12 months. Since a consortium fronted by American businessman Todd Boehly took control of the Blues in the summer of 2022, a truly outrageous amount of money has been spent on new players to strengthen the squad.
The co-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Dodgers has made waves in the Premier League, with over $1bn spent in the transfer market over the course of three transfer windows. This summer, for example, a whole host of players have been acquired including two who Liverpool wanted to sign in Moisés Caicedo and.
Chelsea has already spent more money under Boehly than Jürgen Klopp has spent on Merseyside since his appointment in 2015, around eight years ago. The German coach, with the help of ex-sporting director Michael Edwards in particular, constructed an elite team without the luxury of unlimited funding and he is trying to do that again.
Everything is more difficult,” Klopp said in a recent press conference (via the ECHO) when asked about spending. “There are reasons and you all know them. The endless money causes a problem. There are a lot of things that are different, some clubs just have a different way to do it and nobody understands 100 per cent how it works. As a normal club, it’s really difficult to catch up with them. That’s just how it is. Saudi Arabia on top of that has not made things easier.”
It is reasonable to suggest that Klopp was talking about Chelsea with his words, but despite the incredible spending power showcased by the Blues of late, Mauricio Pochettino’s men are winless for their opening two Premier League games this season, having lost 3-1 against West Ham United on Sunday afternoon.
For all of the spending that Boehly has sanctioned, Chelsea still looks far from winning a meaningful title. The Stamford Bridge outfit has just one point from a possible six so far, having also found the net on just two occasions. Indeed, West Ham United even suffered a red card over the weekend, yet Pochettino’s outfit still struggled to break down the defensive block in front of them.
The curious experiment conducted by Chelsea under new ownership has essentially captured one obvious lesson so far, in that there is more to success in football than relentless spending and collecting the most fashionable players on the market.
Whenever Liverpool fails to make a move in the market, Fenway Sports Group (FSG) is often blamed by supporters. The American owners are known for being relatively economical regarding injecting funds for players — as the idea of a self-sufficient model has always been favored — but the recent $140m (£110m/€129m) bid for Caicedo suggests that money is there for Klopp, but he simply isn’t using it.
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