Jamie Carragher:
Chelsea have achieved the near impossible since Roman Abramovich sold up. They have spent £1.5bn to transform themselves from serial winners of major trophies to serial project managers.
The club who once sent fear through their Premier League rivals with their determination to win big prizes right here, right now, appear to be preoccupied with building for the future.
Chelsea should be title contenders and considered Champions League challengers this season. Instead, their hierarchy seems content to be praised for being the smartest recruiters in the business – the world’s richest development club.
It is a head-scratcher as to how anyone can spend so much over the past three years and still come into another season with relatively modest ambitions and expectations upon them.
Whenever I hear praise for Chelsea’s strategy, they are made to sound like a wealthier version of Bournemouth, or this weekend’s opponents Brighton and Hove Albion.
With respect to the excellent work Chelsea’s co-sporting director Paul Winstanley and director of global recruitment Sam Jewell did at Brighton – a wonderful club now fully established in the Premier League – the pressure to deliver ought to be incomparable to that in west London.
Brighton can finish anywhere between 14th and seventh and they will get the same pats on the back. As someone accustomed to the ruthlessness of Chelsea between 2004 and 2022, it is baffling how few pundits and supporters believe they will be, or in some case even should be, fighting with Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Paris St-Germain in 2025-26.
Chelsea are not being judged to the same standard they were under Abramovich because they are hiding behind a prolonged transitional phase, which keeps extending by targeting a similar profile of young players in each transfer window. That cannot be right for a club who won the Champions League as recently as 2021.
How long is the post-Abramovich rebuild going to last? At what point do they grasp the nettle and buy the next-level, ready-made established stars who will elevate a team from fourth to first, blending youth with experience?
Eventually, Chelsea must settle on a squad which needs a couple of tweaks to compete for a title and Champions League. They look like they enjoy recruiting too much for that to happen any time soon.
The frustration is that becoming Club World Cup winners last summer was a sign of Chelsea’s potential. I remain sceptical about the merits of an end-of-season competition in which the English, Spanish and Italian champions did not fit the qualifying criteria. To me, that makes the idea of being “club world champions” a hollow boast.
Nevertheless, manager Enzo Maresca proved his credentials in that tournament when he went head-to-head with coach of the year Luis Enrique and beat him. PSG, the best team in Europe, were there to win and Chelsea were too good. The manner in which their final victory was achieved was tactically impressive, and any side with talents such as Cole Palmer and Moisés Caicedo can beat anyone on their day.
Defeating PSG should have signalled a new era of intent. Regardless of mine or anyone else’s opinion of the Fifa event, Chelsea should have left the United States with the message: “We’re here, and we’re coming for the Premier League and Champions League next.”
Instead, the next six weeks of transfer activity were odd.
The glaring flaws last season were in goal and at centre-half. Despite 12 new arrivals over the summer, those areas remain the Achilles’ heel.
Chelsea were linked with AC Milan’s French keeper Mike Maignan, but the message was they were not prepared to pay more than £12m. Why not?
Manchester City showed what ambitious clubs do when an obvious issue needs sorting out, signing Gianluigi Donnarumma. Why were Chelsea not part of the conversation for the PSG keeper? He could have been a transformative signing for them.
The ACL injury to Levi Colwill in pre-season was a significant blow, but as a young defender he should have been preparing for this campaign alongside a senior centre-back, not considered the leader of the back line. Colwill alone would not have been the difference between fighting for the title and settling for the top four.
Rather than focus on positions in need of urgent attention, Chelsea appear to be obsessed with collecting wingers.
Jamie Gittens, youngster Estevao and Alejandro Garnacho all signed this summer. They have another winger arriving in the summer of 2026, having secured a £40m deal with Sporting Lisbon for teenager Geovany Quenda. Who among this season’s options will make way for him in 12 months’ time?
With an imbalanced squad, there was no chance of Chelsea winning the league coming into this season, and Maresca already sounded realistic after last weekend’s defeat by Manchester United, suggesting it might be “impossible” to catch Liverpool.
“The players they have decided to buy shows the intention of the club to go again for the Premier League and the Champions League,” he said of the champions. You could be forgiven for thinking there was a message to his own board in those comments.
Early last season, Arne Slot declared Chelsea Liverpool’s toughest opponent – the one team his side were lucky to beat. Watching Chelsea that day, there was a feeling that by this season they would be contenders as long as they made two or three quality additions in the next transfer window.
Five games into this season, Maresca has a right to feel let down by his recruiters. He has had a good 12 months, doing what was expected in the Premier League, winning the Conference League and adding the Club World Cup.
But it has been a bad 10 days, drawing with Brentford, losing to Bayern Munich and United in successive games, and being 1-0 down at half-time to Lincoln City. Now José Mourinho is coming back to Stamford Bridge in midweek and Liverpool await next weekend. It feels like one of those key periods when Chelsea either look on track or they fall short, their lack of depth exposed.
The Chelsea we became accustomed to in the Abramovich regime demanded that they compete for top honours. That regime was brutal in its hiring and firing of managers, but the results spoke for themselves.
Over the past 21 years Chelsea have propelled themselves to become the fourth most successful English club in terms of honours.
They became one of the world’s biggest clubs, not just by massive spending, but by embracing the annual pressure and expectation that comes with such status.
Until they get back to those days, they will go into every season content to qualify for and participate in the Champions League, rather than believe they should be winning it.
Source:Lovinghananews.com
