Chelsea Football Club have been in the news for various reason in 2022. From the sanction of their former owner Roman Abramovich to the club being put on sale and finally a consortium led by Todd Boehly taking over the club for £4 billion.
Todd Boehly’s administration did settle in at Chelsea quickly and as a new owner will do, key figures during the Roman Abramovich era were let go. Key figures include the Former Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck, Director of Football Marina Granovskaia, and Petr Cech, Technical and performance advisor.
New owners also oversaw one of the highest spending transfer expenditures made by a single club. Chelsea spends over £280 million in the transfer market. The blues signed nine new players including Kalidou Koulibaly, Wesley Fofana, Raheem Sterling, Marc Cucurella, and Carney Chukwuekmeka.
After such a summer signing spree one will think the Tod Boehly-led consortium will give Thomas Tuchel time to integrate the new players into the team. After just five matches into the season, Thomas Tuchel was fired after the defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League.
Graham Potter was appointed less than 72 hours after Thomas Tuchel’s sacking. Graham Potter started his Chelsea managerial career very well. He was undefeated in his first nine matches for Chelsea and the blues topped their Champions League ahead of AC Milan.
Chelsea seems to have hit a rock under Graham Potter, the blues are without a win in their last five Premier League matches, and have lost four consecutive matches in a row including three in the Premier League. They are currently eighth in the Premier League and at risk of losing out on a top-four finish.
Gary Neville has insisted that Chelsea will need time to solve Todd Boehly’s summer signing mistakes.
What did Gary Neville?
The former Manchester United skipper said on SkySports podcast: “Are we going to speak about Chelsea? Todd Boehly’s project, we have to speak about Chelsea.
“I got battered by Chelsea fans at the start of the season but I’m not surprised by what’s happening to Chelsea.
“This has got all the hallmarks of a project that will take time. If you look at what happened at the start of the season, there’s no doubt that was handled with crassness, the way in which the transfer window was being handled.
“That transfer window could take Chelsea a couple of years to recover from if they don’t get it right.
“Graham Potter is under big pressure, I hope he’s not and they see it through because this is a culmination of the difficulties of Roman Abramovich leaving, the new owner coming in and sticking his chest out and going around Europe thinking he can play Football Manager.
“I’ve seen it before and it doesn’t tend to work. I think Chelsea have always been a really smart, efficient, clinical operation on recruitment so I think Chelsea are one of the big stories right now.
“I think they will improve but there are obviously question marks because they’re a club like Manchester United where I wonder where the £250m has gone.
“It’s a quarter of a billion quid, where’s it gone, how have they enhanced the squad? There’s a lot of questions for Chelsea.”
