Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital always planned to be active in this January transfer window. It’s why they spent a significant chunk of the World Cup in Qatar meeting with agents to gauge the possibilities in the market and lay some groundwork for future deals.
Now, less than a fortnight into 2023, the temptation to follow up last summer’s transfer outlay of more than £250million ($304.9m) with further significant spending in the winter market must be stronger than ever. Chelsea have steadily amassed an “injured XI” that is better than their starting XI. Performances and results are flatlining and Graham Potter is beginning to bear the brunt of supporter frustrations.
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It’s easy to see why a loan deal has been greenlit for disenchanted Atletico Madrid forward Joao Felix, who will cost a fee of £9.7m ($11.8m) while Chelsea will also have to cover his £5.3m ($6.4m) salary in full until May with no option to buy.
FiveThirtyEight predicts Chelsea have just a nine per cent chance of finishing in the top four this season, a number only marginally lower than their projected 10 per cent chance of reaching the Champions League final in June. At this point, most supporters would be pleasantly surprised if they made it past Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16.
According to the same algorithm, Chelsea’s most likely finishing position in this season’s Premier League is eighth, with 59 points — which would be their lowest tally since the spectacular unravelling of Jose Mourinho’s second spell in 2015-16. Further intervention is clearly required to salvage the first season of Boehly-Clearlake ownership.
Could that more drastic intervention be a mega, too-good-to-refuse instalment offer for Enzo Fernandez, somewhere in the region of his £105m ($128m) buyout clause? Or an above-market bid for a proven striker capable of alleviating Chelsea’s chronic problems in the attacking third of the pitch? What about a high-level alternative to Reece James on the right of defence? Perhaps even all of the above?
There is an argument for spending big now rather than waiting until the summer. In doing so, Chelsea might be able to steal a march on rivals who are keeping their powder dry. Also, aside from the unlikely chance that this season can still be redeemed with a revival in form over the next few months, there is also the possibility that this could be Chelsea’s last opportunity for some time to present themselves to high-level targets as a Champions League club.
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Falling out of Europe’s elite club competition has two primary knock-on effects. One is the loss of prestige in the eyes of the world’s most talented and coveted footballers — a status blow that is compounded with each additional year you fail to qualify. The other is the stark loss in broadcast revenue that limits transfer spending within financial fair play regulations and places significant pressure on a club’s existing wage bill.
Arsenal can attest to both of these — in the post-Arsene Wenger era, they have been forced to embark on a lengthy rebuild around younger talent while jettisoning high earners such as Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Finishing in the top four this season would bring to an end Arsenal’s painful — and, at times, startlingly bleak — six-season absence from the Champions League.
No one at Chelsea, from the boardroom to the dressing room to the stands, has the appetite for that. Recruiting strongly in this window might also mitigate the fact that, as well as possibly no Champions League football, there is no high-profile draw for top players in the dugout — Potter, for all his promise as a coach, does not yet possess the pulling power of Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp or even his predecessor, Thomas Tuchel.
Yet there is also another compelling school of thought: shouldn’t any confident club, armed with a diligent, data-led recruitment process — in other words, the exact kind of club Chelsea’s new owners say they want to build — back itself to identify and acquire the right players for a quick and efficient rebuild, regardless of whether or not immediate Champions League participation is part of the recruiting pitch?
It’s worth casting an eye back to January 2016, a matter of weeks after Mourinho’s second acrimonious departure and in the midst of Chelsea’s annus horribilis. With the club well aware that a historically bad Premier League title defence was unsalvageable, the only two incoming deals director Marina Granovskaia signed off were Matt Miazga’s move from New York Red Bulls and Alexandre Pato’s loan from Corinthians.
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Chelsea instead focused on planning for the summer, when a lack of Champions League football did not prevent them from persuading Antonio Conte to become their new head coach; nor did it stop them from convincing N’Golo Kante to join from surprise Premier League champions Leicester City. Those two transformative moves immediately put the club back on a fast track towards domestic supremacy, albeit with the core of a squad that had proven capable of the same achievement in 2014-15.
It’s hard to envision the current squad being revived with so few moves, despite the 2021 Champions League triumph remaining relatively fresh in the memory.
But focusing on the summer could also afford precious time for Chelsea’s new recruitment team — Christopher Vivell, Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley have all been in their posts a matter of weeks, while Joe Shields remains on gardening leave at Southampton — to fine-tune their operations and form a coherent strategy.
Last summer should stand as a powerful reminder that unfocused spending can do more harm than good. Chelsea are yet to feel any on-pitch benefits from that £250million ($304.9m) in transfer fees on the pitch and, particularly in the cases of Aubameyang and Kalidou Koulibaly, might actually have compounded the problems on the wage bill moving forward.
The most desirable players are not typically attainable in January, and those who are (such as Fernandez) have onerous price tags intended to deter rather than encourage interest. Lesser players and those looking to escape bad situations are available, but settling for too many second-tier options and short-term fixes such as Joao Felix carries a less immediately tangible opportunity cost. Any money spent now is money Chelsea can’t spend later.
It is the single biggest strategic question facing Boehly and Clearlake this month, and the path they choose to take will tell us a lot about how Chelsea will operate in the coming years.
(Top photo: Richard Heathcote via Getty Images)
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