“Chelsea just need to stop buying players… what is it they know that the rest of football doesn’t know?” – Jamie Carragher on Sky Sports (August 2024)

Turns out Jamie, quite a lot.

Chelsea are 2nd in the league, won five on the trot and heading into Christmas looking like the most serious competitor to Liverpool in the title race.

Everyone’s been hard on Chelsea since the Todd Boehly led consortium took over the club three years ago. And rightly so.

It’s been an extremely turbulent period in Chelsea’s history, unsurprising in many ways given the drama of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the impact that had on the club through previous owner Roman Abramovich.

Since then, Todd and his team have been rebuilding the club in their own image. That’s meant new managers, new executives and – most crucially – new players.

First, the numbers.

In total, the club have spent over £1.2bn in transfer fees, with a net spend of £920m. They’ve been the top spenders in the league for the last few transfer windows and have the second highest wage bill, behind City.

They’ve cleared out the dead wood, signed young players on very long-term deals (9 years in some cases) and lowered the average age considerably – in fact the oldest outfield player in the squad is Tosin Adarabioyo at just 28.

This has required a lot of ‘out of the box thinking’ and lots of people who watch and talk about football (including me) thought they were mad.

There were reasons you don’t buy 5 players in one position, or sign players on 9 year contract. But Chelsea are tearing up the rule book and making us all look pretty damn silly.

So, why is it working?

Well, to start with, they’ve made some good decisions when it comes to the quality of people they’ve recruited.

Since his arrival, Cole Palmer has been a revelation, more than justifying the £50m spent on him.

Nicholas Jackson, while inconsistent, didn’t cost a lot at just over £30m and has matured over the last season or so to become a potent threat up front.

Jadon Sancho, at £25m cost a fraction of the £85m Manchester United paid for him two years ago when he was rated as one of the best young English attackers of this generation – you don’t just lose that overnight, as he has shown with a bright start at the club.

Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, costing over £200m in transfer costs combined, are starting to justify some of that spend, predominately because they are being played in the right positions.

Which brings us to the best signing the new ownership have made since they arrived: Enzo Maresca.

Getting a tune out of all these signings would require a very good coach too, and in the young Italian coach, it looks like they’ve found one.

Maresca has combined all of Chelsea’s young talents to form a hungry, cohesive and – above all – well coached team. They press-high, they control possession and they have cutting edge up front to rival any team in Europe.

There have been mis-fires, sure. Sterling never demonstrated why Man City were wrong to sell him. Joao Felix was an interesting choice for £40m in a position where they have plenty of options. The same can be said with Mudryk, £60m.

But where mistakes have been made, the player has either been swiftly moved on, as was the case with Sterling, or rotated out of the side in favour of a more promising alternative.

And, with all these players still well off their prime years, there is plenty of re-sale value. Above all, they are raw, un-finished but with plenty of room for potential.

Bigger challenges will come, and I don’t expect them to win the league this season.

Their ability to rotate heavily in Europe will not be possible if they qualify for next seasons Champions League. This will lead to a smaller squad of players, more competition and perhaps some disgruntled egos. Certainly it will lead to more fatigue.

But so far, Chelsea and their new ownership and shown that they have the capability to get big decisions right. Not only that, but they haven’t shied away from tough decisions.

Removing Mauricio Pochettino from post at the end of last season, after a good run of results, was a pragmatic choice. They weren’t overawed by one good run.

Contrast this with Dan Ashworth and the Manchester United leadership who decided to keep Erik Ten Hag because he secured the FA Cup against City. Ultimately, 5 months later and £20+ million spent, Ashworth is out of his job and Red Devils are once again in uncertainity, with a new coach, new goals and a new strategy.

Chelsea, under Todd Boehly, have committed to a strategy, they’ve executed that strategy and – above all – they haven’t been tempted to change course when all said they should.

Yes, they’ve changed manager. Yes, they’ve sold players. Yes they’ve made mistakes.

But every decision was made through the prism of the overall strategy, despite all the pressure and criticism from the media.

That’s impressive.

That’s leadership.