©JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP
Chelsea FC has had no trouble recruiting players over the past two years. This year, the London club has recruited countless players at a cost of over 200 million euros. As managers, coaches and players come and go, we're beginning to wonder what's really going on at Chelsea.
For the new 2024/2025 season, Chelsea is making a change. After sacking Mauricio Pochettino, Chelsea opted for Leicester coach Enzo Maresca. The club has thus changed owner, coach and players.
A Plethoric Squad
On the bright side, the Chelsea coach has no shortage of options when it comes to putting his team together. So much so, in fact, that the squad now consists of 45 players. For comparison, Arsenal have 23 players in their squad.
What makes this process even more complicated is that the Blues have signed these players to contracts of over 7 years.
This strategy enables them to comply with Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, but signing a myriad of new players under these conditions may not be the best plan for Chelsea. In this context, the London club is now tied to the same players until at least 2030.
Outcasts
Given the excessive number of players in the Chelsea squad, coach Enzo Maresca had to make some tough choices, which were rightly criticized.
In order to give playing time to prioritised young players, Chelsea has sidelined senior players, forcing them to train away from the first team. These include Ben Chilwell, Romelu Lukaku and Raheem Sterling.
While it's great to help young talent by giving them opportunities, every soccer fan knows that a team without experienced players can't be sustainably competitive in the Premier League.
Blurred Vision
One of Chelsea's many problems is its long-term and even short-term vision. It seems that the club is not grateful for the presence of its current players.
While some important players are being pushed out, the club is interested in any player who might be decent. For example, Chelsea bought Estevao Willian, a young Brazilian prodigy, forgetting that they had already signed a player of the same profile a year ago.
What's increasingly worrying is that every time a talented new player emerges, Chelsea are prepared to spend millions of euros to recruit him. Yet some of these recruits have not played enough at the top level, and others have not played at all.
In this context, Chelsea no longer respects the values it promoted. The London club represented a team that supported academy players to earn a place in the first team. Today, it seems that this vision is now to buy their way into a trophy, which doesn't seem to be the ideal strategy.
As for the neutral fans, they can't help but be irritated by this situation. Experienced and academy players are not getting the chance they deserve, only because the club has decided to buy unproven talent.
It was in this context that former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher declared: "Chelsea have got to stop buying players, and players have got to stop signing for Chelsea".
Conversely, Chelsea may be developing an unusual plan. By buying talented young players for less than €50 million, they can either use them or profit from their departure in the future if they fail to make their mark.
Unfortunately, it seems that the board's strategy is to recruit players and sack them when they don't fit in with the current squad. Time will tell whether Chelsea's strategy has paid off.
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