Five reasons for Chelsea fans to be cheerful includes Enzo and, incredibly, Todd Boehly
Chelsea fans have had a hell of a year of it. Four different managers, countless new players and more Premier League defeats than wins.
But there are reasons to be cheerful; we’ve come up with five…
Reece James and Ben Chilwell locked down
James and Chilwell, or rather the lack of them, have been used as caveats for all sorts of Chelsea ills in the last couple of seasons. Their slump under Thomas Tuchel after they led the Premier League at the start of last season was down to the absence of one or both of them. How could Romelu Lukaku hope to succeed at Stamford Bridge without the service that duo would have provided?
It’s sort of true though. Chelsea look both far more threatening and balanced with James and Chilwell at wing-back, and actually, they’re about the only Chelsea players right now that rival teams might covet.
Real Madrid may indeed decide to fast-track Operation Reece James, but it would take a mammoth offer after the right-back agreed a new six-year deal in September. And it would take a smaller, but still significant, wedge to prise Chilwell – whom Manchester City were sniffing around – away, after he recently signed a two-year extension until 2027.
Mason Mount hasn’t gone yet
It’s as though Todd Boehly is the new stepdad, arriving in Mason’s home, where the young whippersnapper has been given all the love required to turn him into a wonderful man, only to tell Mason he can accept the smallest room in the house for the next decade or he’ll help pack his bags.
Liverpool are very keen on Mount, because of course they are – he’s brilliant, and Newcastle are also thought to be sniffing around. Fortunately for Chelsea, a recent report claims there’s ‘renewed optimism’ over a new contract with stepdad offering up a slightly bigger room for a much shorter period of time.
Enzo Fernandez
It’s fair to question the need for Chelsea scouts when your transfer strategy involves either looking at which players your rivals are interested in and offering slightly more money, as was the case with Mykhaylo Mudryk and Marc Cucurella, or simply signing the winner of the FIFA Young Player award at the World Cup.
It’s an idle strategy that is yet to pay off when it comes to Mudryk or Cucurella – though there is hope when it comes to the former at least – but already has with Enzo Fernandez, who is quite clearly a bit of a baller.
£105m is a lot of money, but as Liverpool know all too well, that’s the going rate for a box-to-box central midfielder who can be at the heart of the team for over a decade.
Managerial candidates
The new Chelsea owners sacked the world-class Champions League-winning manager (after trying to take kids into the dressing room), replaced him the legacy boss but created the worst possible environment for him to be successful, sacked him and brought in a legendary managerial failure, and now face the conundrum of whether to replace him on the back of four consecutive defeats with relegation from the Premier League actually not as unlikely as it may seem. It’s not gone brilliantly.
And yet, Chelsea had the cream of the crop to choose from as they underwent a thorough process to select a new manager. You’ll see Chelsea fans on social media turning their noses up at Mauricio Pochettino because he won nothing at Tottenham – at Tottenham – but he is undoubtedly a brilliant manager, apparently willing to take on what currently looks like one of the hardest jobs in football.
Todd Boehly
He’s had an absolute nightmare. The mistakes are numerous and wide-ranging, including managerial sackings and appointments, player purchases, and his weird obsession with the Chelsea dressing room. But it could be worse.
Because the club could go nowhere without the ability to spend money, and Behdad Eghbali and Boehly have absolutely no problem in spending an absolute f*** tonne of it. Most of it poorly thus far, by the looks of it, but some of that very expensive talent will come good, and those that don’t will be replaced, assuming the inevitable FFP punishment doesn’t prevent them doing so.
