NO sooner had the For Sale signs gone up at Chelsea than you could hear the sniggers across the whole of football.
Sympathy for the devil? Not a bit of it. More a smugness from the have-nots that the haves were about to get their comeuppance.
Not so much a nose-thumbing at Roman Abramovich, but at Chelsea FC as a whole.
That’s what being successful over a length of time brings. Envy, jealousy, loathing from all quarters.
There’s nothing like a hint of green around the gills to bring out the schadenfreude in people.
But once those revelling in Chelsea’s potential demise stop smirking, they should consider the repercussions further down the ladder, they should be aware of the wider effect.
Even if Abramovich’s valuation is too high, any would-be buyer is going to have to pay upwards of £2.5billion for the keys to the castle.
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Yet on top of that, there is the £1.5bn it has cost just to run the place over the two decades he’s been there.
That is an average of £70million-plus every year, purely to keep it going.
And therein we come to the crux — the very real question of whether the next owner will be willing to sacrifice that amount season on season.
You’d have to say it is doubtful, given most are in football for two things — money and trophies.
They want the kudos and prestige the first team brings, not the long-term project-building of finding and developing youngsters.
When the new man, woman or consortium comes in, there will surely be some cost cutting. As we all know, that always starts at the bottom.
Meaning it wouldn’t be at first-team level where the impact is felt but the other end.
With all the money spent on youth — and in this case spent better than anyone for over a decade.
Pull back on that and it’s a significant building block taken out of the scheme. Not just at Stamford Bridge, but in the whole of football.
For over ten years only Manchester City have scouted, selected, nurtured and matured as many players as Chelsea.
Whether it’s been developing talent for their own team, such as Reece James and Mason Mount, or ones who have benefitted others.
It comes down to where they were taught.
Would Southampton and Crystal Palace be having the season they are without on-loan duo Armando Broja and Conor Gallagher, for example? Or Huddersfield, with defender Levi Colwill?
There are the ones who were moulded at Chelsea and moved away, like Marc Guehi and Tino Livramento — two more nailed-on England stars of the future.
Yes, Chelsea have spent a lot of money sourcing and shaping the kids, but they didn’t snatch them at gunpoint. They have paid for it.
But other clubs have money, it’s just they chose not to splash out or, in the case of some, didn’t do it wisely enough.
Chelsea — along with City — have led the way. And far from damaging the game, in some cases it has been a lifesaver.
Take young Dylan Williams, the kid who was on the bench in last week’s Cup game against Luton.
Chelsea paid Derby about £500,000 to get him and that half a million was vital to keeping the Rams going.
No doubt the snipers will say that, as and when the purse-strings tighten post-Abramovich, then it gives others the chance to get the best kids out there.
But there’s nothing stopping them now. Just their ability to spot and develop hasn’t been anywhere near as meticulous or masterful.
Plus they haven’t all had owners interested in anything but the short-term, the immediate.
That’s where Abramovich has been different, inasmuch as for all silverware was the most important, he was happy to chuck dough at the other end of the scale.
Yes, huge amounts went on the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Kai Havertz and countless more big names before them.
Yet below the surface, the money pumped into the youth side brought a different reward — and Abramovich was quite prepared to wait.
That alone makes him a rarity. We’re seeing it already because finding someone not only to take that on, but sustain it, has put off a few would-be interested parties.
So maybe stop and think for a second before mocking what might happen to Chelsea now.
The next time anyone asks, ‘What did the Roman ever do for us?’, well in terms of football in general, a whole lot more than you probably realised, actually.
WE’VE seen the era of AVB at Chelsea. Now it’s clearly the one of ABB… Anyone But Barkley.
Four years after signing from Everton, Barkley, 28, has still started only 56 games. That’s under four different managers, too.
Antonio Conte, Maurizio Sarri, Frank Lampard and now Thomas Tuchel have continued to overlook the man who was once dubbed the new Gazza.
Just four of his starts have come this season and Barkley has been subbed in every one.
Last Sunday he didn’t even make the squad for the League Cup final.
And in midweek Barkley stayed on the bench while teenager Harvey Vale came on for the Cup game at Luton.
Get the feeling it might not have been the wisest move ever? For either party.
JURGEN KLOPP makes ten changes against Norwich and still Liverpool barely break sweat in skipping past Norwich in the FA Cup.
It may only have been the Canaries but it was definite proof that they are indeed genuine challengers to Manchester City.
Because when it comes down to it, it isn’t so much the first XI that wins the trophies but the back-up when you need them.
And Klopp, as we saw, can certainly do that.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
