Chelsea – Page 2 – GAME OF THE PEOPLE

CHELSEA HAVE experienced everything in the past 19 years; great players, memorable matches, an extraordinary trophy haul that has created an unprecedented period in their 118-year history. A vast amount of money that has been spent to bring success almost on an annual basis, but the most appropriate monument to the club’s elevated status would be a statement stadium, or at least a football ground that can meet the demand for tickets at Stamford Bridge. The capacity of the club’s ancestral home is 40,000 – a modest stadium by modern standards and some distance behind most of Chelsea’s peers.

Stamford Bridge is a neat football arena, certainly more compact than the stadium when it was a huge bowl with a space-age stand, the first phase of Brian Mears’ bold and unfortunately-timed redevelopment plan, on one side and crumbling terraces at both ends. While many Chelsea fans of a certain age hanker for the old days when you needed binoculars to see the action from behind each goal, in the club’s lost decade of 1974 to 1984, when the crowds plummeted, you could almost have died of exposure

When the ground was finally redeveloped under Ken Bates, it made for a more contemporary experience, but it also created a 41,000 all-seater home. The location of the ground means it is now a challenge to make the place bigger, but equally, it is a major hurdle to try and move. Chelsea, if they are to make Stamford Bridge a 60,000 ground, have to find ways to expand their footprint in London SW6.

Real estate and land in London falls into rare earth territory and the cost is astronomical, but Chelsea have bid £ 50 million for a patch of land adjoining the stadium which is currently owned by the Stoll Housing Association. This could be a very controversial transaction if it goes ahead given the shortage of homes in London. However, it will not be a proposition that will be solved in a short time frame. The right people have been consulted, but ultimately, Chelsea are missing out on considerable matchday and commercial revenues while they can only accommodate 40,000 people at their games.

Chelsea’s income from matchdays

	Matchday income£m	% of total income	Average attendance
2021-22	67.4	14%	37,810
2020-21	7.6	2%	n/a
2019-20	54.5	13%	40,564
2018-19	66.6	15%	40,445
2017-18	73.9	16%	41,281

Source: Deloitte Football Money League

Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United all have 60,000 home grounds. Stamford Bridge is almost always sold out and obtaining tickets is like seeking the Holy Grail, especially on an ad-hoc basis, hardly surprising given the club is now one of the most popular in the world. Football has never been more popular, or more capable of extracting value from the product, so now it the time to increase crowd capacities.

Stamford Bridge is the ninth biggest ground in the Premier League and the smallest among the “big six” clubs. Manchester United, for example, have 30,000 more fans at each home game, which not only benefits various revenue streams, but also makes the club more inclusive. If the current owners succeed in their ambition of rebuilding Chelsea’s home game, the infrastructure surrounding the club will also need to be adapted for purpose. At present, the route home from Stamford Bridge involves a big percentage of the crowd using Fulham Broadway underground station. The current set-up is an improvement on how it used to be, but a further 20,000 spectators leaving the ground would need to be absorbed into the frenetic procession to and from games. This is a dilemma that faces all London sports grounds, there is almost always a shortage of space in the capital.

Have Chelsea left it too late? Has the club lost the initiative in the great Premier power struggle? Certainly, Chelsea have been overtaken by Manchester City and, temporarily, perhaps, Liverpool. In 19 seasons, they have won 17 major trophies, but only two in the last five years. That could be three in five if they manage to win the Champions league a third time. Furthermore, the ground that was once a fortress – between 2004-05 and 2009-10 they lost just three home games in the league – is no longer a place to fear. Since 2018-19, Chelsea have lost 16 at home. Their record against the other “big six” teams at home has also deteriorated in that timeframe. Over the past five years, their win rate is less than 25%.

Clearly, the ambition is to restore Chelsea to title contenders judging by the amount of money being spent on new, young talent. Whether it works remains to be seen, but the huge outlays of cash in the summer and in January were a statement of intent by the consortium led by Todd Boehly. Now the focus is switching to the ground project that was abandoned under Roman Abramovich. If the blueprints produced by esteemed architects, Herzog & de Meuron become reality, Chelsea will have a superb, eye-catching home that can ensure supply meets demand. The Basel-based practice designed the Allianz Arena in Munich, the Beijing bird’s nest and the superb and quite beautiful Bordeaux stadium. There could be no finer representation of the modern Chelsea.

CHELSEA’s latest spending spree has taken them to £ 3 billion since the Premier League started, an open wallet strategy that has confused a lot of people by its kid in a sweet shop approach. The club has generated a net spend of £ 483.6 million, an enormous commitment on the part of Chelsea’s new owners. In total, 22 players have arrived at Stamford Bridge.

It remains to be seen if Chelsea’s bold attempt at rebirth pays off. A mass influx of players doesn’t necessarily work, certainly not in the short term as the management try to work out their best team and the appropriate tactics for a sizeable group of new players. They also need the right manager/coach, and one has to assume that Todd Boehly has decided Graham Potter is the man to take them forward. But with such a big squad now fighting over dressing room pegs, it will take time to blend the talent at his disposal.

It’s not the first time Chelsea have been on a bulk-buying programme, when Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003, they spent £ 121 million on 14 players, some of which – like Juan Sebastián Verón and Adrian Mutu – were clearly bad buys. Over the course of the last 19 years, Chelsea have had to endure some misjudged acquisitions, such as Andriy Shevchenko, Deco, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Mateja Kežman, Romelu Lukaku, Timo Werner and even Fernando Torres. The difference between Chelsea and many of their rivals is that they have been able to afford the odd mistake.

Clubs have always been accused of being spendthrifts. In the 1920s and 1930s, Arsenal were known as the “Bank of England” club as they repeatedly bought big, notably when they signed David Jack (£10,647 from Bolton), Alex James (£8,750 Preston) and Bryn Jones (£14,000 Wolves). Arsenal could indulge themselves in the market in those days because, quite simply, they were very successful. In 1930, Chelsea tried to combat the Gunners and went on a campaign of hiring big names to draw big attendances to Stamford Bridge, and they signed Hughie Gallacher, Alex Jackson and Alec Cheyne, three crowd-pullers. Despite the £ 25,000 paid out, it didn’t make Chelsea successful.

In the early 1950s, Sunderland also earned themselves the tag of big spenders. They signed the charismatic Len Shackleton in 1948 for a record £ 20,050 from Newcastle United and in 1950, paid £ 30,000 for Aston Villa’s Trevor Ford. By today’s standards, such extravagance is small beer, but in austerity Britain, paying such fees was seen as somewhat outlandish. Sunderland scored plenty of goals – Ford and Shackleton netted 22 apiece in 1951-52, but they never won silverware.

Some of the most successful sides have not been created overnight but as the result of patient team-building. But, generally, a team was put together over a two or three year period, Leeds United’s 1969 league title winning side was mostly built in 1962 and 1963 as Don Revie introduced home-grown talent to his team. Derby County’s 1972 champions came together between 1967 and 1970 and triumphant Nottingham Forest in 1978 were constructed in their first season in the first division after promotion with the signing of Peter Shilton, Kenny Burns, Archie Gemmill and David Needham.

In 1979, Manchester City went on a bold and some might say foolhardy spree with Malcolm Allison back at the club for his second spell in charge. Allison may have been an innovative coach, but his best days were behind him when he returned to Maine Road. A larger-than-life figure, accessorised with big cigars, Champagne and expensive clothing, Allison seemed to believe that splashing the cash was also part of the act. He paid an incredible £ 750,000 for an unknown 21 year-old striker, Michael Robinson of Preston North End. He had earlier bought Steve Mackenzie, a 17 year-old midfielder from Crystal Palace for £ 250,000, a player who had yet to make his Football League debut. In September 1979, City paid £ 1.4 million for Wolves’ Steve Daley, a disastrous move that underlined the extravagance of Allison’s team building (pictured). Another £ 1 million signing arrived in March 1980 in Kevin Reeves.

While this extraordinary period looks tame compared to the behaviour of clubs today, it was bound to end in tears. City in recent years have had periods of high spending, such as 2017-18 when they bought £ 267 million of players, recouping £ 68 million in the market, and £ 143 million in 2020-21.

Liverpool were never renowned for over-spending and had a reputation for seeking undiscovered talent in the lower divisions – players like Kevin Keegan, Ray Clemence and Alec Lindsay, all of whom came from small clubs and ended up winning caps for England. But in 1987-88, Liverpool threw caution to the wind and signed two of the most sought after players in British football, John Barnes and Peter Beardsey, for a combined amount approaching £ 3 million. They had already spent over £ 1 million earlier in 1987 on John Aldridge and Nigel Spackman and also added £ 825,000 Ray Houghton to their squad. Liverpool built a new team that was exciting, virtually unbeatable, but ultimately, expensive. If it was a spree, it yielded immediate profits.

Manchester United went on a campaign of rebuilding in 1989-90 with mixed results, buying Mike Phelan, Neil Webb, Gary Pallister, Paul Ince, Danny Wallace and Denis Irwin for a combined amount of almost £ 9 million. United won the FA Cup, but were way down the table and didn’t win the first of many league titles in the 1990s until 1993.

In more recent times, Tottenham spent heavily following the departure of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for £ 85 million, buying seven players who were largely unsuccessful. Aside from Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela, the other players barely made 200 Premier appearances between them.

Everton also failed to make the best of their outlay between 2016 and 2018 when they paid out around £ 240 million, receiving £ 165 million in sales. Some players fared well, such as goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, who was signed for £ 25 million from Sunderland, and Burnley’s Michael Keane, who also cost £ 25 million, but others, such as Davy Klaassen from Ajax and Turkish striker Cenk Tosun, had mixed experiences.

In the modern game, clubs have specialist recruitment staff and for most, players are signed after careful assessment, with data playing a huge part in the process. This also raises questions about mass buying and the vast sums involved. It would seem far easier to make mistakes amid so much player traffic. History tells us that spending sprees have pitfalls, so how much risk are Chelsea taking on at the moment?