Ruud Gullit, who made 64 appearances for Chelsea, has warned that Premier League money alone guarantees nothing, pointing to the Blues and Liverpool as proof that spending big doesn’t equal winning big.
Gullit says Chelsea’s spending proves money isn’t everything
Gullit told ComeOn that having a lot of money to spend is actually one of the hardest things to get right in football. He explained that even the top five clubs in the world only get around one in every three signings correct, and that’s when things go well for them.
Since Roman Abramovich was forced to sell Chelsea in May 2022, BlueCo have spent £1.8 billion on 133 new signings, while recouping nearly £1 billion from the sale of 137 players. It’s a scale of turnover no other Premier League club comes close to matching, and it’s exactly the kind of spending Gullit was talking about.
Buying young talent again and again hasn’t brought success
Gullit pointed to Chelsea directly, saying the club keeps going back to the market for the best young players available, window after window, but that strategy alone hasn’t delivered the trophies to match the outlay. He used Arsenal as the contrast, a club that also spends heavily every year but has built patiently, bit by bit, rather than chasing instant results.
He also referenced Liverpool, who went unbeaten in the Champions League group phase last season before being knocked out almost immediately once the knockout rounds arrived. For Gullit, that’s the clearest illustration that there are no guarantees in this game no matter how the transfer kitty is used.
Context: Conference League and Club World Cup, but no title race
Under BlueCo, Chelsea’s major honours amount to the Conference League and the Club World Cup. There’s been no serious Premier League title challenge and no deep Champions League run to show for four years of record-breaking recruitment, which is precisely the gap Gullit is highlighting.
Liverpool’s context is different but the theme rhymes. Arne Slot spent heavily last summer, only for the club to endure a poor 2025/26 campaign that ended with his sacking, reinforcing Gullit’s point that spending power and squad-building success don’t automatically go together.
Gullit did offer some praise for the current direction under Xabi Alonso, telling ComeOn that he liked how Alonso’s first move was to bring more experience into the squad. He said that shift shows Chelsea have adjusted their philosophy for their head coach, having recognised the previous approach wasn’t working, but that it will still take time given how many young players remain at the club.
Our take: Gullit is asking the question Chelsea still can’t answer
He’s right, and it’s the same conversation this club has been having for four years now. Piling up promising twenty-somethings has papered over a genuine midfield gap rather than solving it, and no amount of gross spend changes that if the coach can’t find a settled spine.
The scale of turnover behind this ins-and-outs churn is genuinely staggering when you see the numbers laid out, and it’s fair to ask whether quantity has come at the expense of coherence. Alonso inheriting such an oversized, unbalanced squad only makes Gullit’s point sharper – bringing in experience was the obvious first move, and it shouldn’t have taken this long to make it.
In other news…
Read more on why Chelsea’s midfield still has a hole despite all the spending.
We’ve also broken down every signing and sale behind the BlueCo era’s transfer churn.
For more on the group Alonso took charge of, see how the Chelsea squad ballooned before this summer’s restructuring.
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