Chelsea made its history this summer by spending over £250 million, the most by any club in a single transfer window.
The Chelsea new owners wanted to show their commitment and their promise to follow the legacy of former owner Roman Abramovich by signing the likes of Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Wesley Fofana, and Marc Cucurella.
However, William Gallas believes Chelsea’s summer spending spree was not carefully taught through, as Todd Boehly had no strategy.
Chelsea’s poor recruitment planning had been having resulted in the blues losing three matches already. This resulted in the sacking of Thomas Tuchel.
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What did William Gallas say?
The former Arsenal and Chelsea defender said to Geant Casino: “To be honest when I watched Chelsea against West Ham, I didn’t yet see anything different to the teams that we’ve seen from the last few years. They played slowly, and it was a difficult match for them. I think a draw would have been a fair result–Chelsea was lucky to win the match.
“Fofana made his debut. He is a young player, and I think he will be a good signing for Chelsea, but it will take a bit of time for him to go to another level. He is training every day with much better players and he will need to adapt. He will learn a lot playing alongside Thiago Silva. I didn’t agree with the price that Chelsea paid for him; I don’t think that Fofana should be valued at £75 million.
“Similarly, Cucarella. I don’t understand why they spent £60 million on a player who has a very similar profile to Ben Chilwell. I feel that is a lot of money for a player who has one International cap for Spain and came from Brighton. Against West Ham, he didn’t demonstrate anything particularly special.
“Koulibaly will need time. He came from Serie A and will need to get used to the intensity of the Premier League.
“Aubameyang, he is 33 years old. People are asking questions about his age and how it ended at Arsenal. Will that work out?
“I feel like Chelsea’s transfer window, despite the amount of money spent, was rushed. There were a lot of changes happening at the club this summer with the new owner coming in and taking a hands-on role in recruitment. I think that Boehly and Chelsea wanted to make signings as new owners to demonstrate his commitment to the club, but I don’t think he had quite the right approach for this transfer window.
“They spent a lot of money, but I’m convinced they could have done better. They didn’t look great against West Ham and that is why I am worried about where they will finish this season. Time will tell. The squad is not better than it was last year.”
Asked if he was shocked to see Chelsea sign Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on deadline day, he said: “It is difficult to understand football at the moment. Look at Aubameyang. He left Arsenal in January, something happened between him and the club, went to Barcelona and now he is coming back to the Premier League after six months.
“We are talking about Barcelona. You don’t leave Barcelona after six months. Do you know what I mean? Maybe Barcelona didn’t give him the assurances that he wanted at his age that he would play every week. They also signed Lewandowski. Maybe Xavi told him he won’t be in his starting eleven every week, but this is Barcelona! Even if he is 33 years old, you need to fight at a club like Barcelona to play.
“I know that there was an unfortunate incident with him outside of the pitch in Barcelona. I can only imagine how difficult that was for him and his family because the most important thing for anyone is the security of their family. Maybe this is why he chose to come back to London, which I completely understand.
“I know there are some fans that are not very happy with the move, but as I said before, I feel like the Chelsea board rushed the transfer window and were desperate to bring a forward in before the window closed. It feels like he was a player that was signed because he became available, rather than necessarily a long-held target. I’m sure they couldn’t sign another forward before the window closed, and as a result, Aubameyang was a player they could get, so they got him.”
