Chelsea transfer news: Todd Boehly is making amends for a terrible first season of decisions at Stamford Bridge.
Todd Boehly's Chelsea reality is starting to hit home. If the 12th-placed finish - nine lower than the spot in which he took over the club in May 2022 - didn't do so then the failure of two permanent managers and one interim boss might have. It is the sheer volume of transfers that needs to be made this summer that perhaps truly shows just how bad things have gone.
Little of the promised on-field changes have been seen with senior players often preferred over the younger recruits. Mauricio Pochettino's appointment could change a lot of this with a vital summer ahead for the club but it will take a change of stance from the owners. Not from themselves but the previous regime.
Whereas Roman Abramovich and his financially savvy director Marina Granovskaia tended to wait on players, drawing out every semblance of pennies in deals and continued loans or extensions, Boehly has already started to sanction a more cut-throat method.
Then club record signing Romelu Lukaku was loaned away in the first summer after his transfer, most ties cut without question. Marcos Alonso left under the new structure as well. Their decision to let Timo Werner leave on a cut-price was another that it would be hard to see happening under Abramovich.
The question was whether such authority would be possible with players that Boehly-Clearlake themselves had purchased. The choice to move on from Graham Potter so soon after spending over £20 million ($24m) to break him free from Brighton is evidence that it will not become an issue for them.
The savvy businessmen appear willing to make brutal monetary decisions even at the expense of losing face and staring embarrassment in the eye. Now that looks set to continue.
He has been lacking confidence throughout his time and never truly put together a sustained run of form that justified his massive price tag. As one of the early beneficiaries of the Chelsea siege on Brighton, Cucurella stands as an image of total failure for ownership to shyly hold up.
After once again being unable to match the levels of high quality that he showed at Napoli for much of the last decade, the Blues are now considering a swift change of heart having made him one of their first signings last summer. On a four-year deal and with three of those left, it is yet more unfortunate study material for the errors made but also a positive switch in mindset for the owners who are trying, at least, to be proactive with their sales.
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