Todd Boehly’s stewardship as Chelsea owner has shown the pitfalls of owning a club without sound strategy and understanding, The Irish Independent’s Dan McDonnell has suggested.
Chelsea’s Champions League journey ended last night at Stamford Bridge following a 2-0 defeat to Real Madrid, leaving the game 4-0 on aggregate.
The result means that manager Frank Lampard, who returned as Chelsea manager earlier this month, has yet to win a game in his second stint.
Speaking on The Football Show, McDonnell remarked that Chelsea’s problems may stem from an owner who only knows club ownership from the US sports landscape.
“Clearly there are good examples of it, but the American franchise system, and the sport and how they operate; […] there’s almost an assumption that Chelsea will compete in these competitions every year,” McDonnell said.
“They’ve been knocked out of the Champions League tonight; they’re not going to play a Champions League game for two years.”
“I’m guessing that when going to take over Chelsea, as much as the Premier League is a monster in its own sake, the Champions League is part of that,” McDonnell added.
“Boehly did seem to be unsure about the whole qualifying thing.”
McDonnell also believes that Boehly’s strategy at Chelsea regarding transfers was couched more in madness than method.
He believes Mykhailo Mudryk’s eight-and-a-half-year contract is just one example of Chelsea focusing on spending without having a profound, comprehensive plan.
“The Chelsea thing in the window in January was very much like: ‘Let’s give people what they want. What do they want? Transfers’,” McDonnell noted.
“As much as football’s [Financial] Fair Play rules are arbitrary to some extent, it does show that you can’t just buy everything; you can buy success over time.”
“Newcastle, as they’ve shown, are getting there, Manchester City have already done it, other teams without the regimes behind them have bought success with a lot of spending.”
“But it does show that you do need a little bit of strategy behind it,” McDonnell concluded.
“You can’t just blindly throw cash and be successful.”
“Maybe that’s the dream that’s being sold to people. Look at Manchester City, what they’ve spent; if you come here and spend this amount of money, you will have that kind of success.”
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