Liam Twomey’s piece in the Athletic today goes into depth on Chelsea’s now infamous “£1bn” transfer spend.
He points out that vast tranche of that money – about 30%, has barely been on the pitch for the club. Wesley Fofana, Christopher Nkunku and Romeo Lavia represent almost 20% of the spend, and have barely featured since signing.
A very useful pie chart which you can see below illustrates that a third of the money spent have rare seen the grass, which a second third has played irregularly.
There is no doubt that this is a huge factor affecting this season’s results, nobody would deny that.
But if you put it another way – should a team with the players that are available be doing better than 9th place, where we currently are? The answer to that is a definite yes. Should we need all £1bn on the pitch to beat Burnley or Sheffield United? The answer to that is a definite no.
