Sky Sports' Paul Merson on Chelsea's transfer business: "It seems like agents are sending videos of a player, five-minute clips, and Chelsea have gone, 'I'll take him. Oh my God, how good is he?' They've just got a YouTube team together. But it's a million miles off."
Thursday 25 April 2024 06:07, UK
In his latest column for Sky Sports, Paul Merson delivers a scathing assessment of Chelsea's recruitment and questions how they will get out of the mess they find themselves in.
Three years ago Chelsea were winning the Champions League and now they are getting thrashed by Arsenal. Not long ago it was Arsene Wenger's 1000th game and Chelsea beat Arsenal 6-0. Look at it now.
If you were reading a book and this was the story you'd throw it in the sea halfway through. You'd go this couldn't happen, it's impossible. You can't be that good, spend a billion pounds and be that bad. You'd say 'this is so far-fetched. It's unbearable'.
To spend a billion pounds on those players… Wow. I mean, I don't know who would sign half of them.
Enzo Fernandez for £100m and £115m on Moises Caicedo. Who's gone out with the vision that these are going to be the best two midfield players in world football? Because they should be for nearly a quarter of a billion pounds. They should run the show every game.
It almost seems like agents are sending videos of a player, five-minute clips, and Chelsea have gone, 'I'll take him. Oh my God, how good is he? Look at his clips. Look at him'.
They've just got a YouTube team together. Like they've looked at clips and put it together and gone, 'this team can play. Look at these.' But it's a million miles off.
It's a waste of time talking about who Chelsea could sign to make things better. How can they?
They'll have to sell their homegrown players like Conor Gallagher, who's played every game and captains the team. He's been one of their most consistent and best players.
They'll probably be able to sell Gallagher for £40-50m and then because of the silly rules they'll be able to buy someone from abroad for £100m.
The player they are going to buy isn't going to be better than what he is. That would just sum Chelsea up. It's a bad cycle they have put themselves in. I don't know what they were doing.
We saw it against Arsenal, Kai Havertz is better than what Chelsea have got. So why would you sell someone and bring in players that are not better than what you've already got?
Oh, I know. Sorry. Because in five years' time they will be better. Where is the thinking in this? Seven and eight-year contracts? Oh my god, it's not baseball. You're not buying a pitcher.
I can't believe what I'm watching. Chelsea have got this for seven years now. Seven years.
The season is over already for Chelsea. It's shocking, unacceptable. We saw against Arsenal how much they rely on Cole Palmer.
We see the players fighting over a penalty in the 6-0 win over Everton. Some of the players then go and put a performance in against Man City and then back to that again at Arsenal.
It's a circus. You talk about a bag of revels, that's Chelsea all over. They've spent a billion pounds. They can't score goals and they're relying on one player.
You're looking at all that money they spent and there are players in the bottom half of the table that would walk into Chelsea's team.
The first thing everybody does is say, 'oh sack the manager, he can't be good enough'. These players who are going on the pitch are the ones who are getting beaten 5-0.
For me, I don't know what goes on behind the scenes, but they spent a lot of money and signed a lot of players on seven-year contracts that are nowhere near good enough, not even close to being good enough. It's frustrating and it gives me the hump.
I don't know what Mauricio Pochettino can do. He's got players on seven-year contracts, eight-year contracts. They were bought so that in the next six years they'd become the best team ever to play football and it doesn't work like that.
You can't go that far forward and think 'oh they're going to be good in six years' time'. Football changes too quickly, and they're stuck now, Chelsea. I don't know what they're going to do.
