A lot has been made of Chelsea’s so called project or lack of but Fabrizio Romano has provided some detailed insight into the ideas behind it.
The Blues have caused shockwaves in the transfer market following the takeover by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in 2022 and have heavily invested in the squad, breaking the British transfer record twice on Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo.
The club’s recruitment strategy has completely changed with the Blues now targeting the best young players from around the world with a view to the future and vastly reducing the wage bill by putting them on heavily incentivised long term contracts.
Romano speaks on Chelsea’s project
It’s safe to say things haven’t gone to plan on the pitch and Chelsea have had two disappointing seasons under the new ownership although they did improve on their 12th placed finish in the 2022/2023 campaign with a top six finish last season.
Naturally the mass upheaval and lack of success on the pitch following the club’s most successful period in it’s history under Roman Abramovich has caused fans to question what the ownership are really trying to do.
Romano has provided some insight into the idea behind Chelsea’s project and admitted their idea is to be judged in three to four years time.
We can only judge Chelsea in 3-4 years. This is their idea. But I can understand now people saying, Chelsea project is difficult to understand and all the criticisms about Chelsea project,” he told Men in Blazers.
“I understand that because they have spent big money and we are not seeing big results, but trust me, some of the young players Chelsea are signing are special players.
“I always mention Kendry Paez from Ecuador but also Willian Estevão, this guy is really special. Special sources in Brazil see him as Neymar-level potential. Obviously, they are young but we are talking about fantastic talents.
“Some of them are already developing at the club. Look at Madueke, when they signed him, he wasn’t at Chelsea level, now he’s shining, and Cole Palmer was a fantastic investment also.
“So, their idea is like, let’s see in 1,2,3 years how we develop when all these players, also from South America join the club. This is the idea, long term. You will take some time? Yes, but I think this players they are signing are very, very good.”
This is supposedly the third year now of the new project so fans will desperately be hoping to see some form of on field success this season in terms of getting into the Champions League and winning silverware.
It’s called “long-term planning,” lol! Far too many supporters latched on at the outset to the idea that the owners are American and, therefore, must not have a clue how to run a football club. It’s a lazy, lazy trope (especially when you consider about half of the EPL now has Americans in ownership) and it ignores evidence on the ground in the way of greatly improved results in 2024 as well as the evidence Romano points to.
Besides all that, most fans forget what a hash Abramovich had made of things by the final few years. We lucked into winning a UCL under against a far superior City team, but, aside from that, we hadn’t really competed for a league title in at least three years before the sale, and the Russians had royally screwed up a number of big transfers—including paying a still-world-record fee for Kepa, failing to keep Rudiger, and buying Lukaku at an exorbitant cost for a manager who didn’t even want him! In fact, after letting DeBruyne and Salah slide through our fingers, selling Lukaku as a youngster to Everton and missing out on his most productive years (+200 goals) has got to go down as one of the Russian’s most infamously bad moves. We suffered through the likes of Higuain and Morata while Lukaku was banging goals in left and right for other clubs, then we paid an inflated price for him without even asking the manager whether he’d be able to use. But, oh no, it’s the Yank who doesn’t know how to run a football club, lol!