Chelsea have been advised on how to make their transfer business “easier” following a £1 billion ($1.2bn) spend by Todd Boehly and the Blues board.
The Premier League giants have splashed the cash on a regular basis across the last three windows. They parted with £600m ($748m) during the 2022-23 campaign and refused to tighten the purse strings during the last recruitment market.
Little value has been found despite investing big money, with former Chelsea defender Gary Cahill using his time at the club as an example of how less can be more. He has told Hayters: “When you’re in transition and the team’s evolving and changing, when we were successful here we had the core of the team and then we added one or two players to that and that’s a lot easier to adapt those players into the system and the football club. When you have so many changes, it does take time. The ability is there, first and foremost, but it takes time to learn this league and get experience.
You get experience good and bad, football’s not all roses. They’ve had a few sticky results and that will give them some experience. In contrast to that, the manager has obviously got bundles of experience in this league, so I think he’s a great person to guide them through this.”
Chelsea have, with Mauricio Pochettino now at the helm, picked up just four points from as many Premier League games in 2023-24.
Cahill added on an ambitious rebuild in west London: “Obviously it’s quite disappointing in terms of the results but the average age of the squad is very, very young and it’s a new squad that’s been put together. A lot of them have not got huge experience in football just yet and certainly not in the Premier League so that will take time, it’s a very hard league. But there’s bundles of talent.
I was away on pre-season with them and saw the training, and I was very impressed. But this will obviously take time. Time and patience and let these young players develop.”
Cahill took in 290 appearances for Chelsea across eight years, with the Blues winning two Premier League titles, a couple of FA Cups, the League Cup, Champions League and the Europa League on two occasions during that time – with shrewd investment making them fiercely competitive at home and abroad
