TODD BOEHLY took time out from playing fantasy football to watch some of the real thing.
As Chelsea chairman, co-owner and frontman, Boehly will have been bitterly disappointed to see his team lose.
And as the Blues’ interim sporting director, he’d be forgiven for thinking that he and the club are being taken advantage of in their unprecedented summer shopping spree.
Or, at the very least, that the law of diminishing returns applies as much, if not more, in football, thanin any other type of business.
While Boehly and some of his fellow Chelsea directors were at St Mary’s, you can only assume others were working on their behalf on an alleged £77m deal to sign Josko Gvardiol from RB Leipzig.
Wesley Fofana arrived for an eye-watering £75m a few days before, following the astonishing £62m spent on Marc Cucurella at the start of the month.
READ MORE ON CHELSEA
Kalidou Koulibaly’s £33m transfer feels like a lifetime ago, such has been the gathering pace and generosity of Boehly’s trolley dash.
The Chelsea defence, featuring 30-somethings Cesar Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva and Koulibaly, certainly looked in need of freshening up.
And given their ages, Gvardiol (20) and Fofana (21) could be assets to Chelsea for a decade.
But are they really almost £70m better than Armel Bella-Kotchap, the 20-year-old centre back that Southampton signed from German club Bochum for £8m?
Most read in Football
FREE BETS AND SIGN UP DEALS – BEST NEW CUSTOMER OFFERS
The superb early tackle that Bella-Kotchap produced on Raheem Sterling was just the start of another impressive performance.
Yes, OF COURSE Chelsea and Southampton have very different aims this season. The kind of players that will improve a Blues squad that won the Champions League 15 months ago are few and far between – and therefore expensive.
But THIS expensive?
If the Gvardiol deal goes through, we can surely assume that the Blues’ central defence should be OK for a while.
Boss Thomas Tuchel is said to remain unhappy about his midfield options. Which is why rumours about a £70m deal for Frenkie De Jong won’t go away.
Again, though, you looked at Romeo Lavia more than holding his own for the home side, and thought: has the world gone mad?
There’s a reason Manchester City put buy-back and sell-on clauses in the £10.5m (rising to £14m) deal that took the 18 year old to St Mary’s.
If the defensive midfielder can keep adding the odd goal to everything else he does – his equaliser made him the first 2004-born player to score in the Premier League – he will be worth a lot more than that very soon. Although not quite as soon as he might have, after pulling up early in the second half when sprinting back to make up for his own mistake.
City also knew what they were doing when they sold goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu to the Saints for £15m on similar terms. Would he have done better than Chelsea counterpart Edouard Mendy in trying to stop Lavia’s shot?
Kai Havertz (an initial £62m) and Hakim Ziyech (£35m) kept up the habit of not living up to their fees (although you can’t put a price on Havertz’s Champions League-winning goal).
That’s why pre-match rumours that the Blues were looking at late swoops for WIlfried Zaha or Neymar, in addition to or instead of the frustrating pursuit of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, were not dismissed out of hand.
Suffice to say that, of Chelsea’s summer signings so far, only £50m Raheem Sterling is really delivering. But his opening goal was the only high spot for the Blues of an evening when Southampton looked like much more of a team.
If you’re Chelsea, buying players is the easy bit – especially when clubs and agents see you coming a mile off, as they seem to with Boehly.
Read More on The Sun
Moulding them into an effective unit is a lot harder.
Boehly has just over 48 hours more of fun to enjoy. Then it’s down to Tuchel.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
