Todd Boehly had his phone out before kick-off, photographing a giant tifo unveiled by Borussia Dortmund’s Yellow Wall. Cue the inevitable, and perhaps unfunny, quips that Chelsea were about to submit a bid for it and amortise the fee over an eight-year contract. Dortmund can seem the throwback club in one respect, with their vast support and almost old-fashioned atmosphere lending authenticity, and the role models in others, picking up some of the best young players, polishing them up and selling them on for vast profits. They are also a team without a league title in a decade, so no identity is without its imperfections.
But then there is Chelsea, Boehly’s great expensive experiment. Thus far, no one is copying them as, after £600m of spending, they are 10th in the Premier League and out of both domestic cups at the first hurdle. Now they may exit the Champions League in the last 16 after a first-leg defeat to Dortmund. Their new calling card is that they offer the promise Arsene Wenger used to with distinctly cheaper Arsenal teams: of a brighter tomorrow. Like then, it prompts the question if tomorrow will ever come and if it will be sufficiently bright.
“We are a team in progress,” said Graham Potter after a result to suggest they have regressed. “The performance was another step forward for us,” he added but, Champions League winners in 2021, it would be a step backwards to exit in the last 16 now.
In some respects, however, he was right. In posting eight shots on target and an expected goals (xG) of 2.14, in rattling the bar and in the performance of Joao Felix, his side had more of a threat. There have been times in each of his appearances when Felix has looked Chelsea’s best player; except, of course, that he is not their player, but Atletico Madrid’s. In Reece James and Ben Chilwell, they had quality from attacking full-backs who are on the road back from injury. Yet Chelsea keep acquiring wingers and No. 10s without shedding the sense they need full-backs to excel if they are to score.
Their statistics make for bleak reading, with four goals in nine games in 2023. Profligacy can be a problem: so, too, the lack of predators. As Edin Terzic noted, Kai Havertz was often the only man in the box and he is neither a striker nor a natural goalscorer. A man who is both, as Dortmund can testify, was not even named in the Champions League squad. A declining Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang may not be the answer but he is the only experienced No 9 Chelsea have bought in their spending spree. It reeks of confused thinking and Aubameyang, while ill-suited to Potterball, has at least scored in Chelsea’s two best results of the season, the twin wins over AC Milan.
In 2023, they have eight times as many signings as victories. “You always need a bit of luck but you can’t wait around for luck,” said Potter. Chelsea may feel themselves luckless. But for a remarkable goal-line clearance from Emre Can, Kalidou Koulibaly would have equalised but then a centre-back who has been dropped in the Premier League would have been out on his own as their top scorer in the calendar year and that would have been damning in a different way. Meanwhile, as Terzic noted, Benoit Badiashile has been in the Premier League side, but Chelsea had too many recruits to register all in the Champions League.
The talk of progress and long-term thinking feels undermined by illogical elements. Terzic felt part of the Chelsea gameplan was to find Felix in the pockets and he offered dynamism as a No. 10 but the Portuguese may have been designed as a quick fix to propel Chelsea into next season’s Champions League while, had they been competent enough to complete the deal on deadline day, Hakim Ziyech, who started as the right winger, could face faced Bayern Munich, not Dortmund, in this week’s Champions League.
Then there is the question of a mild-mannered manager who has found himself at the centre of a ludicrous controversy this week. It doesn’t matter if Potter is not angry when penalty decisions go against his side; it does if he cannot win a game. Positives can be detected in losing performances, managers afforded leeway to integrate new signings and time invaluable for strategy to be justified.
Yet it is not unrealistic to think that, with this level of expenditure and this calibre of player, Chelsea ought to be significantly better now. It is Dortmund whose rebuilding job is enforced on an annual basis, they who lost Erling Haaland last summer and Jadon Sancho the year before. They will take a lead to Stamford Bridge. A decade ago, they reached the Champions League final with a lower wage bill than QPR. Now the danger for Chelsea is that they serve as an indictment of another west London club.
