Lately, new Chelsea owner Todd Boehly has been in the headlines more often than he would have liked.
And he is learning the hard way that there is no substitute for a real sporting director.
Boehly named himself the club’s acting sporting director as soon as Marina Granovskaia, who had served in the role before him, announced her departure.
She left the club along with other members of ex-owner Abrahamovich’s team, such as Bruce Buck and legend Petr Cech.
Since his self-appointment, however, things have not been as smooth sailing as he might have imagined.
Spanish giants Barcelona heavily toyed with Chelsea this summer, signing almost every player that the London club had their eyes on, and also signing some of their players in the process.
Lewandowski, Raphinha, and Kounde were all players initially touted to join the Blues but ended up joining Barcelona.
It is realistic to think that this sort of bullying would not take place if the club had an experienced sporting director in charge of the transfers.
However, this is not the only place where Boehly’s inexperience has cost him.
The departure of former manager Thomas Tuchel is also being seen as a direct consequence of the lack of footballing expertise that the owner is bringing to the table.
Todd Boehly: “Tuchel is extremely talented and had great success, our vision for the club was finding a manager that wanted to collaborate with us” 🚨🔵 #CFC
Over the summer, Boehly and Tuchel had several disagreements over the topic of recruitment.
One of his main focuses was getting legendary superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, whereas the manager knew that Ronaldo would not fit well in the team and was thus refusing to sign him.
Alongside this, there were several occasions where it would have been downright frustrating to work with someone who knows very little about the sport, for example when Boehly suggested Tuchel play a 4-4-3 formation.
For those confused, a 4-4-3 would mean there is no goalkeeper in the team at all.
If you ever feel like an idiot, just remember…
Todd Boehly presented Thomas Tuchel the idea of a 4-4-3 formation.
Thus it comes as no surprise when reports note that there were disagreements between the manager and the owner’s vision for the club.
ESPN expert Laurens Julien echoed all these points in a recent episode on ESPN FC and went in on Boehly for taking such a huge responsibility while clearly not having the experience or knowledge of it.
He stated that “Why would Thomas Tuchel collaborate with someone who knows nothing about football”, emphasizing the point that Boehly lacks the knowledge needed to take on such an important role and that Tuchel was not in the wrong for these disagreements.
Julien also went on to say that “...it (Chelsea’s statement) just didn’t give us the real reason why they sacked him“, questioning that the reason Boehly gave for the sacking of Tuchel was an outright lie, as the reasons simply did not make sense.
"Why would Thomas Tuchel collaborate with someone who knows nothing about football?"@LaurensJulien reacts to Todd Boehly's comments on Thomas Tuchel 😡 pic.twitter.com/1f35HgmFl9
He asked for him to come out and state the reality of what was actually going down in the Blues’ management, which was Tuchel’s growing frustration with an uninformed sporting director.
Other pundits too have come to the defence of the German in this saga, saying that anyone, in this case, would rightly stop working with the bossman.
Graeme Souness, the controversial TalkSport pundit, scoffed that Boehly has been in football for 2 minutes and is already making sporting decisions.
He wholeheartedly disagreed with the sacking of the manager and added that he believes the real reason for the sacking has not been revealed.
“Chelsea got rid of the wrong man.”
“Todd Boehly will rue the day.”
“Boehly has been here two minutes but he knows all about soccer… no.”
Boehly’s tumultuous time as a sporting director might be coming to an end though.
Several sources report that he has reached out to Luìs Campos from PSG for the role, while several others state that he has reached out to RB Salzburg’s Christoph Freund.
Chelsea are in advanced talks with RB Salzburg’s Christoph Freund to become sporting director.
Boehly admired RB model: “We’ve talked about having a multi-club model. Red Bull have Salzburg and Leipzig in the Champions League. I want to continue building out the footprint." #cfc
With everything that is going down in the club, Graham Potter’s job could not come under a more stressful time.
His first game being a Champions League draw against Salzburg, all eyes are on the former Brighton manager as he now restructures the squad to get back to winning ways.
