Chelsea owner Todd Boehly has been criticised from many avenues already, whether that has been from supporters, rival clubs or even certain pundits.
The American, who is acting as interim sporting director amid links to Michael Edwards, has already spent upwards of £150million on Raheem Sterling, Kalidou Koulibaly, Marc Cucurella and signings for the future like Omari Hutchinson and others. Chelsea's rather public approach for a number of targets has caused a stir.
One of these people to have criticised the part LA Dodgers owner is Gary Neville. "So, they were so close last season in difficult circumstances," he told the Sky Sports' Gary Neville podcast after the Super Sunday fixture between West Ham and Man City. "And I know that Chelsea fans are probably thinking, well we've signed Koulibaly, we've signed Sterling, we've signed Cucurella. They are getting players in but it just seems a little bit pinball type.
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"Your head is moving like where is it going to be next, you are not quite sure. We've just watched a team today that are a machine in Man City. Chelsea are not at that phase yet as you can tell. New ownership, I think it will take a little bit of time to settle down but it was a really good start and good win."
"During these moments, the way you shut people up like me is just to win."
Boehly is set to be a busy man whilst Thomas Tuchel continues to work on the pitch now with the Premier League season very much underway. Moves for Wesley Fofana and Frenkie de Jong are in the making whilst numerous outgoings are in the process of being finalised.
Questions remain over how Chelsea can afford such an expensive transfer window with some reports forecasting a £300million spend but a certain £33million transfer windfall from two players will help balance the books. Marcos Alonso and Timo Werner are Barcelona and RB Leipzig bound respectively.
On top of the money generated from the sales of the two Blues players, Football Finance expert Kieran Maguire believes Chelsea are in a healthy position regardless to spend big this summer.
"I’m actually pretty relaxed about Chelsea," he said to The Athletic. "I know they’ve made big losses in the past but they can say COVID had an impact on a couple of the seasons. They have been selling players far more than anyone else, they are the biggest generators of revenue (example of this provided by football business Twitter account Swiss Ramble, who explained that in five years up to 2020, Chelsea made £434 million from sales. The next highest were Liverpool at £276 million and Everton at £208 million).
"The situation has flipped. Just as supporters shouldn’t have been worried about not buying enough players a few weeks ago, they shouldn’t be worried about player sales now. It will happen."
He then added: "Historically while Chelsea are the biggest spenders in the Premier League, they have also generated the most money from player sales over the years. Last season you saw Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham going to Italy (AC Milan and Roma respectively for combined £59 million). When academy players like them leave for big money, that is pure profit.
"When you’re signing players, you are spreading the cost over the length of the contract. So if Chelsea spend £300million this summer, the amortised cost per year is probably going to only be around £50million-£60million. They have made a profit of more than that last summer (Romelu Lukaku’s £97.5million fee amortised over five years, while sales were in excess of £100million). People also just focus on the money being paid and ignore the fact that FFP is based on a three-year assessment period.
“It’s taken me by surprise because I didn’t think Boehly-Clearlake would go down this route — to spend, spend, spend. To put it into context and with the help of an inflation calculator I came up with, the first year under Roman was effectively worth a lot more. Admittedly that was in the pre-FFP era but it won’t be excessive by Chelsea’s standards.”
With this all taken into account, Boehly should be in a position to make up the £10million difference in negotiations to speed up the Fofana deal. It is expected to any transfer agreed for the Frenchman will include 'favourable add-ons' and despite Brendan Rodgers' tough stance, the will of the player is to leave and his annoyance was not only signalled by his body language during the Brentford game but also with the fact that he believed Chelsea's second bid was 'fair', as per CBS Sports' Ben Jacobs.
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