Todd Boehly's five most STUPID decisions at Chelsea

Tom Weber

• 4 Apr 2023 13:06 BST
• 3 min read

Todd Boehly has only been in charge of Chelsea for a year, yet in this short amount of time, the American has overseen plenty of dumbfounding decisions.

Knee-jerk judgments and lavish spending have come to characterise the Blues under the Boehly regime. The new ownership has managed to make a Champions League-winning side look like relegation fodder despite spending in excess of €600 million. It's a staggering level of underachievement, and Todd Boehly will rightfully be seen as its architect.

Several of Boehly's worst decisions have been made in the transfer market. For one, there are the long contracts. While perhaps a savvy way to outmanoeuvre Financial Fair Play rules, it also means that Chelsea will be stuck with players that have no incentive to perform for the foreseeable future.

Spending north of €30m on Kalidou Koulibaly, a great player no doubt but one who is on the wrong side of 30, and giving him a contract until 2026 is a decision that few smartly run clubs would have made.

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The Mykhaylo Mudryk saga also perfectly exemplifies Chelsea's knee-jerk business under Boehly. They blasted €70m on a raw player simply so that Arsenal - who have since ended up with a better performer in Leandro Trossard - wouldn't get him, and they gave him an eight-and-a-half-year contract, leaving them completely incapable of getting him off their books at a reasonable price if he fails to have the desired impact.

Going into the season with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as the only proven striker was similarly questionable. They spent €12m on a player well into his 30s, gave him a deal until 2024 and then sacked the coach he was signed for, ostracising him in the process.

Managerial decisions

And this brings us to perhaps the most egregious decisions: the managerial choices. Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, but looking back, it truly is staggering what a ridiculous error of judgment sacking Thomas Tuchel was, perhaps the most foolish of the lot. Reasonably popular and very successful, Chelsea got rid of him mere weeks into the season.

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Hiring Graham Potter for €24m, spending north of €300m on players he apparently didn't ask for in January, only to sack him before the end of the season is shocking but ultimately not surprising: it's what Chelsea do now.