Todd Boehly is a man with a lot of ideas and, since he fronted the Clearlake takeover of Chelsea last year, he has rarely been shy in expressing them. Very few of those ideas so far have demonstrated much understanding of football, its culture or how it is played, but just because a lot of what he has said has been naive or clumsy does not mean that all his ideas are necessarily bad. Which brings us to Chelsea’s transfer policy.
In the January window so far Chelsea has signed Mykhailo Mudryk, Benoît Badiashile, Noni Madueke, Andrey Santos, David Datro Fofana and, on loan, João Félix at a total cost of $195 million in fees alone. Nobody has ever spent more in the January window. This follows a record-breaking summer window. Although there have been isolated chants, notably in the defeat at Fulham, for Roman Abramovich, the former owner who was forced out by U.K. government sanctions, no Chelsea fan can realistically argue that Boehly and Clearlake have not spent money. The question is whether it has been spent wisely.
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