Chelsea’s squad is reportedly ‘divided’, while there are ‘doubts’ over the ability of Graham Potter’s ability to solve the club’s crisis.
Chelsea are in the midst of one of their worst runs of form in the Premier League era, their two wins in their last 14 games in all competitions even worse than the one suffered towards the end of Jose Mourinho’s second spell at the club – the Portuguese managing five wins from his final 14 game in charge.
The Blues are currently 10th in the Premier League, 11 points off the Champions League places, the same amount of points that they are clear of the relegation zone.
Chelsea’s co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali have given their backing to manager Graham Potter in recent weeks, though according to The Athletic, the former Brighton boss is in charge of a squad that is ‘divided by the circumstances of a chaotic past year,’ and ‘vastly differing impressions of their futures at the club’.
The new owners have spent over £600 million over their first two transfer windows in charge at Stamford Bridge, with the club’s lavish spending spree taking advantage of amortisation – spreading the cost over lengthy contracts.
However, according to the report, there are ‘genuine concerns’ among English players that they will be sold to help ‘balance the budget’.
Under UEFA’s FFP rules, amortisation allows the transfer fee to be written off across the length of a player’s contract, although when a player is sold, it goes straight back into the club’s coffers, with sales of academy players going down on the books as pure profit.
Chelsea have a number of English academy graduates on the books, namely Mason Mount, Conor Gallagher, Trevoh Chalobah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, all of who could be sold to help the club comply with FFP, particularly if they miss out on Champions League football.
Meanwhile, the report goes on to say that ‘not everyone in the squad is convinced the new signings are all up to Chelsea standard’, though there is a feeling that the new arrivals will still be given ‘priority’ in terms of minutes between now and the end of the season.
There is said to be ‘sympathy’ towards Potter from within the squad, who has the unenviable task of juggling a bloated squad that includes well over 30 senior players.
However, the report adds that while he is ‘not personally disliked by any of his players’, there are ‘some doubts as to whether he is up to the task’ of solving the club’s current crisis or whether he is ‘tactically capable’ of competing with the game’s top coaches.
