By Tony Attwood
- Arsenal v Chelsea: a game where home advantage really ought to count
- FA’s trust in Fifa results in potential huge losses for football from World Cup
In the last piece, we looked at the home and away form of the clubs and the last six games of each club. But what about the history of Arsenal and Chelsea playing each other? And as we noted before, of late Arsenal have very much got the better of Chelsea. We have also elsewhere commented on Chelsea’s extraordinary spending on players, and their unique approach to contracts – interesting experiments both but neither of which has taken Chelsea to the upper reaches and trophies that they expect.
After winning the Premier League for the fifth time in 2017, and after losing their money-providing owner, who as a Russian thought to be close to the hierarchy in his own country with a number of questionable financial dealings behind him, was considered something of a persona non grata and so moved on at the end of the 2022 season. In their previous three seasons, they had won the league and been FA Cup runners-up in each of those seasons.
But then, with him no longer overseeing issues, matters took a little bit of a dive with Chelsea coming 12th, 6th and 4th, and with early exits in two of those three seasons in the FA (although they did reach the semifinals in 2024.)
However, what was noticeable was that from the start of 2020 onwards, Chelsea found it nearly impossible to beat Arsenal either at home or away. Since the start of 2020 the clubs have played each other no less than 15 times in league and cups. Of these 15 games Chelosea has won one match – at Arsenal on 22 August 2021 (0-2). Of the rest, Arsenal have won 10.
Yet in these seasons Chelsea have come third, fourth three times, sixth and 12th. So although the season of the 12th-place finish was something of an outlier, Chelsea have been a solid team when it comes to league placements. And yet they find beating Arsenal, or even drawing with Arsenal, rather difficult
Especially as in the previous 18 games, Arsenal only managed to beat Chelsea twice. So it does indeed look as if the Abramovich era brought success which Cheslea cannot now find.
Anyway, Chelsea were sold at the end of the 2021/22 season, to Todd Boehly for a record $5.25 billion. It was the most expensive team transaction in professional sports.
The group owning Chelsea also own part of the LA Dodgers, and maybe it is because that ownership has done quite well, the owners thought they had the magic touch and could make all sorts of sports clubs work. And certainly when you have an owner who is said to be worth aound $4.5 billion (according to Forbes), then I guess you can start believing that you can do anything and win everything.
But… there is an issue because rich men buying clubs don’t always seem to make those clubs successful. Which is not to say they sink without a trace, but they somehow don’t always rise to the top.
According to Chelsea’s figures in a statement published May 6 2022, Boehly and his group bought Chesla for (£4.25 billion), although Wiki does claim that it was only £4.25 million, but I really do think that is wrong.
Now, one of the problems is that the bulk of that cash went straight to Roman Abramovich, who had to leave England because of his country’s invasion of Ukraine. But it is widely reported that the deal meant that the new owners could not sell shares or take dividends from Chelsea for 10 years, and could not increase the club’s debt beyond a certain level.
BlueCo, who own Chelsea, also own RC Strasbourg Alsace. They are seventh in the French league at the moment 19 points behind the leaders. Chelsea are fifth in the Premier LEague table, 16 points behind the leaders (who happen to be Arsenal)
Of course, as you might have realised, I am not a millionaire, let alone a billionaire, but I do have some qualifications in maths, and looking at the BlueCo financials, I don’t think they are doing that well. And that is not just me saying that, because Bing pointed out when I did a little search, that Chelsea has spent more than any other club over the last 20 years. They reckon the total spent on players is now over one billion euros.
Of course, I can only pass on what I read in the media, but I am not sure that they have had a good return for that investment, although they have, as noted above, won some of the silverware. So that is all quite impressive. But really, looking at the position of the club today, was it worth all that money?
