The Chelsea model: how to spend £1.12bn and fail to improve European champions

Put aside, for a moment, the numbers in Chelsea’s first-team squad. Now imagine the sheer size of the HR team required to deal with the upheaval.
All those disgruntled faces, the queues of employees hoping for answers. Chelsea have seen change in the playing department, the commercial department, coaches, managers, doctors, physiotherapists, financial experts, recruitment experts, communications — even the head of HR is less than a year in the job.
Most clubs open the season with messages of unity and hope, no matter how fragile that peace might prove. Chelsea’s began with a passive-aggressive statement of displeasure from representatives of Raheem Sterling and a football equivalent of Where’s Wally? in which those gathered at Stamford Bridge attempted to find Conor Gallagher amid the assembled throng of squad members.
By kick-off against Manchester City on Sunday few were any the wiser, and by the final whistle even less so. If one fact sums up the confusion at Chelsea it is that the club fielded a midfield three of Enzo Fernández, Roméo Lavia and Moisés Caicedo that cost a little over £250million, yet were utterly overshadowed by the player they sold for one tenth of that last summer, Mateo Kovacic. And that was true even before he scored City’s second goal.
There was no need for Chelsea to be opening the campaign with another great reset, but then there is no reason for so much of the activity at the club under Todd Boehly and friends. Players come, players go, but upgrades are rare.
Looking at the Chelsea team that won the Champions League final in 2021, and bearing in mind not a single player that kicked a ball for the club in that game was involved on Sunday — unless we count Kovacic, for the other side — how many positions can convincingly be said to have improved under the new regime? One, if we advance Cole Palmer ahead of Mason Mount. And this is a spend of roughly £1.12billion. Where has it gone? Where was that money on the pitch?
In 2022-23 Manchester City’s first game was away to West Ham United, who appeared content to sit on a two-goal defeat, and Sunday’s game was like that. Except Chelsea, unlike West Ham, have spent the sort of money that should put a team up there with City. In the second half, Stamford Bridge became almost subdued as City’s control was so great. Go anywhere nice on your holidays, Dave? Much trouble getting parked today, Tone? You reckon they’ll ever let us have the ball back, Charlie?
Chelsea brought on players in an attempt to end the torpor, but they were Boehly-era Chelsea players. They were rumours, they were soundbites, they were nods and winks. This one’s going to be good, Todd. You’ll pay £40million but you’ll get a bargain there. Give it five years he’ll be worth four times that.
That’s what Chelsea is. The absolute embodiment of a venture capitalist hedge-fund project, and about as warm-hearted and loveable too. Look at the way they treat their staff. To have 43 players is always going to cause problems. Gareth Southgate was uncomfortable taking 26 to a World Cup, and this approaches double that. Enzo Maresca, the head coach, has the option of six goalkeepers, seven central defenders, six full backs, six outright strikers, six wingers. It’s impossible to operate as a functioning unit with those numbers.
What isn’t impossible is to treat the group with appreciation and dignity. Some of the eventual departees will be academy graduates, players that have given their all to the club, who have done nothing wrong other than failing to satisfy a recruitment metric that appears increasingly flawed.
Gallagher is a Chelsea hero because he is seen as a loyalist. He has been at the club since school, his family are Chelsea fanatics, he’s one of their own. So attempting to push him out is an atrocious optic. News that Gallagher was told to train away from the first team, and has been excluded from the first-team quarters, while his forced move to Atletico Madrid dragged on plays about as well in the old Shed End as a Tottenham Hotspur scarf. Within two minutes of City’s first goal, Gallagher’s name was being sung by the home supporters.
And this isn’t José Mourinho or John Terry, don’t forget. This is a player who started his first Premier League game for Chelsea on August 21, 2022. He’s actually played more games on loan for Charlton Athletic, West Bromwich Albion, Swansea City and Crystal Palace than he has for the club where he is revered. That Gallagher is now a cause célèbre just shows the chasm that is opening between Chelsea and their fans.
Sarah Atkinson is the head of HR at Chelsea, or she has been since October. This being Chelsea, who knows? She could be in line behind Gallagher negotiating her settlement with what was previously the intern given the way the football side of the business is unfolding and, if so, good luck. Her LinkedIn profile says she has one thousand followers, although whether that’s on social media or just comprises staff members trying to get an update on their future employment, who can say? Either way, this is an increasingly bizarre experiment around how to run a football club.
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The former owner was an ally of Vladimir Putin yet, amazingly, since Roman Abramovich left, Chelsea have become ever more extreme. Nothing about the club appears grounded, nothing is certain. In the coming weeks this unwieldy squad will be cut and cut and cut again. What will remain, however, is unknown.
The faithful may feel Chelsea are being harshly judged after one match against the defending champions, yet if the only issue was bedding in a new team, if this was just a football matter, there would be mitigation. Instead, it is as if Chelsea are bedding in a new club, a new identity, as if everything recognisable is being stripped away.
What was there for the locals to latch on to? A blue shirt? Liquidator by the Harry J Allstars? The nearest to a popular figure would be Palmer, and he was still a City player this time last year. And Chelsea’s owners aren’t dishing out lengthy contracts because they value permanence. This is a financial ploy, involving amortisation and future assets.
Venture capitalists aren’t building for the long term; they’re passing through. If Carney Chukwuemeka, for instance, was such a for ever acquisition, how come Chelsea now have seven players in central or defensive midfield positions?
Sterling’s advisers may have gone early with questions about his future, but he won’t be alone in wondering whether it’s time to head for the lifeboats while room remains. It’s not even women and children first at Chelsea; as always in this line of work, it’s every man for himself.