Stop with the swaps & "clever" deals - Address the urgent needs!

This is NOT how to run a big club like Chelsea.

Chelsea have had two urgent needs for quite some time now. A proper 9, tall, powerful, an elite finisher, to compete with Nicholas Jackson. And a GK who is of the level to compete for a PL title.

Any fan, anywhere, of any club, and anyone in the game, knows these two positions are crucial to any successful team. This is just known. Like even a kid who’s been a fan for a short time can see these two positions are important.

The only people who can’t see this are the two men running the football side of our club, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart. Oh and our Head of International Goalkeeping, Ben Roberts. According to well-connected content creator Alex Goldberg on ‘X” on Monday, within the industry people cannot believe how much power Ben Roberts has, by the way.

Before I get fully into this, I want to fully condemn the abuse and personal attacks and threats made to Paul Winstanley, his wife and family. That is completely unacceptable and disgraceful behaviour, its absolutely evil. You never cross the line into abuse, or targeting family members, ever.

Professional criticism in a respectful way, is fine. But it should go no further.

Anyway, onto that professional criticism. The Sporting Directors decided we could get through this season with Nicolas Jackson and a raw 18 year old striker who’s not ready for PL football, and compete for a top 4 place with just that, and Christopher Nkunku, who is not a striker or a pure 9.

Ben Roberts seems to keep insisting that Robert Sanchez, the keeper with the second highest errors leading to goals in the league, is destined to reach the levels achieved by Petr Cech - the standard for all Chelsea goalkeepers now - and become a world class goalkeeper.

Of course, we knew then this was utter nonsense.

But I’ll be honest the sporting directors and Ben Roberts often give the impression to the outside world that they think they’re perfect and cannot make mistakes. So they insisted on these decisions.

As of Jan 21st, outside of Simon’s site, there’s been no major links to Chelsea signing a striker this window, even on loan. Any links have been one source, or for the summer, or been closed down by Fabrizio. Meanwhile it seems like half the PL, even teams with good strikers, are getting linked with strikers.

(Image: BBC Sport)

In terms of GK, that seems it might be addressed in the summer, but even after the latest shambolic mistake by Robert Sanchez the club are making head coach Enzo Maresca defend it.

Alex Goldberg, who I mentioned earlier, has now said (and its on the live blog for Tuesday), Sanchez is only playing due to club politics, which if its true - and I don’t know and am not saying at all its 100% true or if it is not, but I trust Alex - is an absolute joke. Sadly, it’s completely believable. To be honest, its the only explanation I and many others can think of for him still starting Premier League games for Chelsea.

Again, this is nothing personal. Robert Sanchez seems a decent guy and a good pro, and a strong character. He’s just not up to the standards Chelsea demand of a goalkeeper, in my view.

A GK who is negatively impacting some results, playing due to club politics is laughable. This is not how big clubs are meant to be run, and it disenfranchises the head coach, whoever they are.

We have assembled a good starting XI and subs, who can win games of football. We’ve got some talented players, and again, I’ll give credit where its due, the Sporting Directors get some praise for that. They are well coached by head coach Enzo Maresca and we’re 4th in the table. But in terms of the squad building and strategy, I don’t see an elite, competent one at all.

I recently had a look at our transfers and rumours for the last two windows and I noticed a pattern. I’ll do it by club, as that makes it look more obvious.

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Transfers (summer 2024):

Aston Villa:

Sold: Ian Maatsen

Signed Ian Kellyman

Leicester City:

Sold: Michael Golding

Signed: Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall

Atletico Madrid:

Sold: Conor Gallagher

Signed: Joao Felix (after Samuel Omorodion fell through)

Rumours (Jan 2025):

Crystal Palace:

Potential sale: Trevoh Chalobah

Potential signing: Marc Guehi

Man Utd:

Potential sale: Unclear, rumoured to be Joao Felix

Potential signing: Alessandro Garnacho

Juventus:

Potential sale: Renato Veiga

Potential signing: Nicolo Fagioli, Dusan Vlahovic

Borussia Dortmund:

Potential sale/loan: Renato Viega, Carney Chukwuemeka

Potential signing: Jamie Gittens

Bayern Munich:

Potential sale: Christopher Nkunku

Potential signing: Mathys Tel

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This isn’t a coincidence, it's a pattern. Its pattern of looking for good deals for PSR purposes, seeing if we can take a player in exchange for getting rid of a player. It's almost like exchanging commodities to get value.

This is NOT how to run a football club.

Especially not a big club like Chelsea.

I get on occasion you can do a deal like this, a smart deal which works for everyone. But it should be the exception, not the rule. And when two of them could be moving on after 6 months, it looks even more ridiculous.

It appears on the surface - whether its true or not - that instead of focussing on building a squad and focussing on priority positions, like competent, smart, well run clubs do, we’re trying to do clever deals for the sake of it and do dodgy PSR deals.

There’s literally no excuse for Chelsea (or any big club) to be run this way.

I’ve not seen one rumour this window from the big two of Ornstein or Fabrizio, of a player from a club where there’s not a rumour about a player coming the other way. Yes, the club might be working in silence, but again, the perception is they feel there is no problem.

Literally no other big club operates this way, with almost every deal being a swap or opportunity. This is not some new genius way to build a squad, it's a rudderless, chaotic, shambolic approach which we can all see, has seen the real needs of the squad neglected.

It appears there’s no clear long term plan to build and evolve an elite squad, with intent for each position and a shortlist, and you sell players and buy players without it needing to be the same club. You target players based on talent, profile, data and other metrics. Not by whether you can do a swap deal or not.

It comes across from a distance, like Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses trying to do the best clever deal he can and often messing it up, or messing up the squad.

Chelsea didn’t need Joao Felix, we didn’t need Omari Kellyman, and we didn’t need Kiernan Dewsbury Hall. Two of those are now up for sale after 6 months. We had midfielders to use, most likely Lesley Ugochukwu, instead of KDH and other wide attackers/10s instead of Felix.

So in other words, we spent £94m (NINETY FOUR MILLION POUNDS) on players we don’t need. That money could have been spent on a top striker (Gyokeres for example), with the remainder, plus the fee we spent on for Jorgensen - who you don’t sign - and the fee from selling Sanchez, to sign someone more proven for a bigger fee, and keeping Djorde Petrovic as number two. Not to mention we could have used the money we planned for Victor Osimhen, another failed deal.

That would have been smart squad building: we'd have two key positions sorted, proper backup for our midfield, and if we sold Axel Disasi and kept Trevoh Chalobah, we’d have the defence sorted from the summer as well. I guarantee we’d be higher in the table now if we’d used our money that way. But apparently this was way too complicated for well paid Sporting Directors of a giant club to figure out.

I mean Matt Law has said we’re trying to sign a midfielder this window. I mean if its an experienced DM on a short term deal or loan, I kinda get it, but again, its not the top two priority.

We have two top young prospects who would get minutes at Chelsea if they came back, its not a priority need, we have solutions in-house. Its just craziness, and there seems to be no understanding of priorities, or even proper use of what we have.

We’ve still not signed a player over £50m under these sporting directors without Behdad Eghbali having to step in and finish negotiating the deal by the way. He had to step in for Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Pedro Neto. It wouldn’t shock me if we’ve lost big deals due to poor negotiating by them, though that’s just speculation on my part.

I have backed these owners all the way. I still back them, for the record. I have been very patient, more than most people. I especially backed, and still fully back, Todd Boehly, whose vision - which includes signing proven players alongside top young talent - I believe in.

In fact, and this may be a shock, I still believe the owners want success at Chelsea, and have good intentions, believe it or not. I now believe they - and Behdad Eghbali especially - are being guided and have put their faith in the wrong people, in the wrong “experts”, and need better, more highly qualified, elite level people advising them.

However this is the most angry and frustrated I’ve ever been, as someone who’s supported and loved this club for 38 years now. We have to be doing things better, this isn’t fitting of our club. I don’t get a sense of authority, know how, big club mentality from the people making the decisions. And if we don’t others in football won’t.

I do think we’ve signed some talented players, and talented young players (who I hope we keep). But the squad building and transfer strategy hasn’t been great. They promised the squad would be done in 4 windows, here we are in window 5, and 6 to come in the summer, and we still need about 5-6 players.

We DO have a core of players who can be good enough to stick around and play for Chelsea, and a lot of good young talent. I’ll always give credit where its due and its due there. That’s clearly the speciality of our sporting directors.

But we don’t have the core of proven talent in key positions we should have by now, And although Matt Law has said we want to sign a ST and try and bring a deal forward from the summer, there’s still no hard links to anyone. And as I said earlier, certain players seem to be getting picked for the team based on politics not merit.

This is not, to me good enough for an elite, global football club with our ambitions.

This is Chelsea Football Club. We should be run by elite, world recognised, best in class football people, making good decisions, setting the standards and expectations demanded by Chelsea (winning), signing top players and top youngsters - both. People respected on and off the field, acting with class towards our players, fans and those outside the club. This is an absolute non-negotiable for Chelsea.

To me anyway, we certainly aren’t conveying any of that right now in word or action, and as a long time fan I’m hugely frustrated, and a little angry too, because we can do so much better and the fans deserve better.

Finally, some kind, respectful advice for those in charge:

Stop only thinking of the future.

Stop always trying to do swaps or clever deals.

Stop only focussing on opportunities.

Think of our current and obvious needs, and do something about them, and sign proper, top class players to fill those holes.

Build a proper team the proper way. A team to win trophies.

Its way more simple than you’ve made it, and despite spending over £1 billion, you’ve still not achieved it yet.