Chelsea Football Club have been experiencing quite the rollercoaster over the last 18 months, since new owner, American Todd Boehly, purchased the club for a record-breaking €4.25 billion. Led by Boehly, the BlueCo consortium bought Chelsea in May 2022, in what became the largest transaction in the history of professional football (soccer). Boehly, who already owns (French) Ligue 1 team Racing Club Strasbourg, is seeking to mirror the pyramid structure of football club franchising, pioneered by City Football Group. CFG has established an unprecedented ownership structure in which one parent company owns many clubs, allowing for a streamlining of revenues, partnerships, and branding, with one flagship club at the top of the pyramid. City Football Group are the owners of 12 clubs across the globe, funding male, female, and youth teams within each club. Most notably, CFG owns the defending treble champions Manchester City. This purchase was a key move in Boehly’s efforts to create his own parent company, giving BlueCo a flagship club from which to derive their name (from the iconic Chelsea blue) and the majority of their revenue stream. This precedent shattering sparked excitement and anticipation amongst the Chelsea fanbase and placed Chelsea in the limelight of the footballing world.

While all the investment in Chelsea sounds like a fantastic development for the club and its fans, it hasn't proved to be so hunky dory. An unimpressive tally of wins, or rather a surprising tally of losses, a lack of goals, and a porous defense has been the return thus far on Todd Boehly’s investment. Boehly’s first season in London ended with Chelsea finishing in 12th place (with a record of 11-11-16), and missing all European competitions for the first time in 25 years. Off the field the situation is no better, a revolving door at the managerial spot and injuries galore, it is undoubted that the European giants, if you can still call them that, are between a rock and a hard place right now. At this nexus of expectation and attention, pressure and controversy continue to mount upon Chelsea FC, and the world is waiting to see if or when their spending spree is going to produce results.

With the signing of Cole Palmer in September, the England U21 starlet, from Manchester City, Chelsea surpassed €1 billion under Todd Boehly, an unprecedented amount to surpass in such a short amount of time. Palmer is the latest purchase of Chelsea’s summer spending spree, in which they spent a Premier League high €462.1 million, and currently sit in 11th place (8 points) with a 2-2-3 record. (see fig 1)

Chelsea’s forwards have performed far under the expectation when they were purchased. Leading to a lot of discussion about the club’s tendency to overpay for players. For example, take Mykhailo Mudryk, a Ukrainian winger who Chelsea outbid Arsenal to bring to Stamford Bridge (Chelsea’s home stadium) last January for €70 million, (€40 million over his estimated market value). During his first months at Chelsea, Mudryk was without a single goal contribution (goal or assist) in the Premier League. And he was goal-less across all competitions, only tallying 2 assists over the second half of the campaign. Even Raheem Sterling, one of the few bright spots for Chelsea last season, was performing below his expected contribution levels. And to put their lack of goal scoring into further comparison, Chelsea’s leading scorer Kai Havertz had 8 goal contributions (7 goals + 1 assist) last season, shockingly low for a team that spends over €250 million on its attacking players’ wages. Havertz’s time at Chelsea came to an abrupt end, moving to Arsenal this summer, just 2 years after scoring the Champions League winning goal for Chelsea.

This lack of goal production was a defining factor of Chelsea’s season last year, and has become a defining trait of the Todd Boehly Era in London. From the graphics below, we can see the significant inefficiencies that plagued Chelsea’s attack this year. Chelsea finished 15th out of 20th in goals scored last season and their 31 goals scored on the year was less than Erling Haaland (Manchester City striker) alone. Chelsea’s 2022-2023 campaign was confirmation to the football world that you can buy players, but you can not buy wins.

On the bright side, Raheem Sterling, one of the first players bought by Todd Boehly, and his hot start this season (3 goals in 8 appearances in Premier League play) is leading some to believe that there may be better days around the corner for the Chelsea attack. More reinforcements in the back line have also helped to strengthen the porous defense of last season. Despite an up and down start to the year, Chelsea seemed to have fixed some of these issues, since the arrival of Mauricio Pochettino, a reputed and successful manager who came in before the beginning of this campaign. Aside from sitting in 11th place, Chelsea have a positive goal differential thus far, which is always a good sign. This could be evidence that the pieces are in place and the results are coming soon.

A club with gigantic expectations is not used to the lower half of the table. Chelsea have secured 2 consecutive wins in the PL, and 3 consecutive in all competitions, with a +6 goal differential in these matches, as well as scoring 11 goals in 8 PL matches thus far. This may be evidence that Chelsea’s resurgence to the top of the table could be underway under Pochettino. While progress has been made, the memory of last season’s failure lives in the minds of everyone around the club and the pressure is mounting around Stamford Bridge, Chelsea’s squad, Mauricio Pochettino, and Todd Boehly to find a solution. All parties involved are more than ready for the club to start meeting and exceeding their expectations, and start proving its reputation as a European giant (soccer equivalent of a ‘blue blood program’) once again.