Todd Boehly has received support for his controversial opening months as Chelsea co-owner as a battle continues regarding the impact he has had at Stamford Bridge so far.
The American, who has been the most public facing of the joint ownership group alongside Jose E. Feliciano of Clearlake Capital and Behdad Eghbali, has drawn immense scrutiny for his actions over the first four months of his tenure.
The club marked 100 days in charge by sacking Thomas Tuchel days after his 100th match at the club and following on from a frantic £250million summer transfer spend that spanned the length of the window with talks and failures throughout.
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Boehly, who also owns successful Major League Baseball (MLB) team LA Dodgers, has been extremely active in his new role and has cleared out the existing framework by removing Bruce Buck, Marina Granovskaia and Petr Cech alongside movements in the recruitment and physio department.
His public opinion has also been shared in stark contrast with the previous ownership regime that left Tuchel as a standalone figure for affairs at the club despite a tumultuous 19-months as manager. Having raised the idea of an All-Star match to fund the EFL ladder Boehly drew plenty of criticism and was lambasted by Gary Neville, who tweeted: "I keep saying it, but the quicker we get the regulator in, the better. US investment into English football is a clear and present danger to the pyramid and fabric of the game. They just don't get it and think differently. They also don't stop till they get what they want!"
That wasn't the first instance of Neville taking aim at Boehly. He had earlier in the summer said: "The American guy [Todd] Boehly, looks like he wants to play Football Manager," when appearing on Sky Bet’s The Overlap. The former Manchester United and England right-back added: "He’s wandering around a little bit and they’re a bit panicky now. They’re almost like bouncing around because it feels like he has to do something."
That was mid-summer. Plenty has moved on even since then and Boehly is still being analysed at every juncture. Party to that, talkSPORT's Simon Jordan and Graeme Souness gave their own opinion on the matter, without anything particularly being of note regarding Boehly at the current moment. Here's how their debate went:
Graeme Souness: "He spent a couple a hundred million quid [£250million] already."
Simon Jordan: "Correct, he didn't have a couple a hundred million quid in the bank, by the way."
GS: "Whether he's learnt his lesson already in one window, he will learn that it's not as easy as he thinks it is. He announced himself as a sporting director."
SJ: "He didn't! He didn't!"
GS: "He announced himself as the man making the decisions."
SJ: "Let's be clear, unless it's your chequebook, you aren't making the decisions, you're being allowed to make decisions so at the end of the day Todd Boehly was always going to be the person making the decisions. All he did was the very thing people should do when they come into a new industry. Avail himself of what's going on around him."
GS: "He didn't!"
SJ: "That's your version of events and that's Gary Neville's version of events. It's the Sky trait."
GS: "He got rid of the three people who were making the football calls. [Bruce] Buck, [Granovskaia], and Petr Cech."
SJ: "That's an assumption."
GS: "I'm looking at a football club."
SJ: "You're looking at people that worked for Roman Abramovich, this is what happens when a regime changes."
GS: "So you think that was a good move?"
SJ: "Can you imagine Bruce Buck was going to stay there when they got a new chairman, the dynamic is that things change. Managers change."
GS: "He's coming from baseball, his sport."
SJ: "When you walk in the door as a manager the first thing you do is get rid of all the backroom staff."
GS: "So you're saying that getting rid of all the football people was the way forward?"
SJ: "It depends."
GS: "Yes or no?"
SJ: "It's not a yes or no answer, what you want is a binary answer. In a different discussion you would never say Bruce Buck and Marina [Granovskaia] are football people."
GS: "You have to say that under them, they have done well in terms of players that they have brought in. The new guy's background is not 'soccer' and he says 'we're gonna spend 200 million quid."
SJ: "So Chelsea not winning the league for six years, winning the Champions League which is a knockout competition and it's commendable, right, is doing well? Spending £200million a season is doing well?"
GS: "Those three people had been responsible for some of the success that Chelsea enjoyed."
SJ: "They haven't won the league for six years, they won the Champions League, they spent £200million a season with the exception when they were sanctioned for their policies of piling up young players. Is that doing well?"
GS: "You cannot say that Chelsea have not been successful."
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