Chelsea’s new owners marked their first year in charge just recently, and it has been a rollercoaster ride for them so far.
So much has happened and so much has changed off the field as well as on it. A host of new players have arrived in to the squad, and they have spent almost £600m on new players across the two transfer windows that they have been in charge for so far.
Sources: Chelsea’s fire sale – a look at the outgoing developments!
Many Chelsea fans are starting to get more critical of them day by day, and things are certainly very tense after the team finished 12th in the Premier League this season and had four different managers. Mistakes have been made, many fans are super frustrated and annoyed.
Former Chelsea captain Frank Leboeuf has explained some recruitment flaws that the new owners have made, and what they need to be focusing on doing this summer, in his latest exclusive and extensive Chelsea column for Si & Dan Talk Chelsea today.
EXCL: Caicedo and Mitrovic should be targeted, Why Mount can go, Lukaku must stay at Inter, Kovacic dipped, and Optimistic for Pochettino!
The latest Frank Leboeuf column here:https://t.co/GekmGlbkzc pic.twitter.com/Qu9s0o0vik
— Chelsea-News (@ChelseaNewsCo_) June 2, 2023
Lebouef said: “New players need time to settle down. In my case I came to Chelsea for £2.5m and I had no pressure. Nobody knew who I was, and I was already 28, I wasn’t 20. I didn’t need any time because I was already experienced. It’s due to maturity, we could settle down much easier than the new guys. So you have to be careful that you don’t pay £60m, £70m, £80m again for a player who has only showed his talent for a season. Chelsea have to stop gambling on players, that’s the thing. When Manchester United got Casemiro, there is no gamble there. If Harry Kane goes to Real Madrid next season, it’s not a gamble, it’s a win win situation. Chelsea are gambling too much and that’s the thing.
“We need players who are ready now, players who we know have the experience. I have spoken on here about having no leadership, especially in the spine of the team. If Kante goes, Kovacic goes, question mark about Thiago Silva’s fitness because he’s going to turn 39 in September, you don’t know who the goalkeeper is going to be, we have no striker, therefore you have no spine of leadership. So where do you go from there? I’ve never seen that at Chelsea. Going back to my time there was Leboeuf, Dennis Wise, Roberto Di Matteo, Gianfranco Zola, Mark Hughes, Gianluca Vialli, then after that there was John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Petr Cech, that’s another world! Who do we have right now? So it’s easy to see for me. Other clubs like Manchester City boast a much better and more experienced spine. It’s a big reason as to why we haven’t been performing.
“Don’t spent £100m on young players if you do not have a spine, because that’s just useless.”
You have to remember that Chelsea started the season having needed to replace Rudiger, Christiansen, Lukaku and Werner, all through the fault of the previous regime.
If no new players had been bought to replace them, the fans would have been up in arms.
Precisely, and the owners were under extraordinary time pressure because of the government’s late approval of the sale. If you want to critique transfers going forward (now that a team of experts has been installed) that’s one thing, but looking back and finding fault with acquisitions that were made under incredible duress is ignoring the context of 10 months ago.