After second major trophy in two months, free-spending Chelsea finally justifying massive financial outlay

It wasn't that long ago that Chelsea went through four managers in a season and finished 12th in the Premier League.

 

Now, the Blues are FIFA Club World Cup champions.

The Premier League side have undergone a remarkable transformation in the last few years, kickstarted when Todd Boehly and BlueCo took ownership of the London club in 2022. Chelsea almost immediately began spending heavily as they seemed eager to lock down as many young, promising players as possible to long-term contracts.

There were more experienced players signed to lucrative deals as well, and in the first full season under Boehly's stewardship Chelsea spent a mind-blowing £575 million in transfer fees — give or take a million here or there.

The massive influx of players came with an expected term of instability, and Chelsea cycled through four managers in that 2022-23 campaign before settling on Mauricio Pochettino as their new boss in the summer of 2023.

With a new man in charge comes new ideas, and Pochettino's single season on the sidelines saw another £400 million in incoming transfers as the club climbed up to sixth place in the Premier League standings.

Despite an obvious improvement under Pochettino, especially in the second half of the campaign, BlueCo parted ways with the Argentine and sought out the services of then-Leicester City boss Enzo Maresca.

As with the previous manager, Maresca brought with him a list of areas where the squad needed shoring up, and Chelsea endeavoured to spend another £220 million during the Italian's first full season on the sideline.

That brought Chelsea's total transfer outlay to well over £1 billion from 2022 to the end of the 2024-25 campaign, plus player wages. And with sky high spending comes expectations to match.

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Upon Maresca's arrival at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea were less than four years removed from winning the Champions League title, but given the churn among managers and players that had happened in the interim, it felt more like a lifetime had passed.

The club was now unrecognisable from the side that reigned supreme during the COVID pandemic, and it would have to start justifying the massive financial resources that the new ownership had invested.

The first month of Maresca's tenure looked very familiar, with some positives but also too many negatives as Chelsea won two of their first four in the league and hovered around mid-table. But then something clicked.

The Blues lost just one of their next 12 league matches and climbed as high as second place as Maresca's vision, combined with a squad that was eager and able to execute their manager's orders, took shape in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, Chelsea were among the hottest teams around, led on the field by the cold, calculating talents of Cole Palmer (a relative bargain at £40 million in 2023) and a supporting cast all pulling in the same direction.

While the league campaign didn't live up to the promise of that early-season hot streak, Chelsea still finished fourth and claimed a Champions League berth. 

In Europe, the Blues were in the midst of a historic run through the UEFA Conference League, which they would eventually win to claim the first piece of silverware in the Boehly/BlueCo era.

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Like many of the other 31 teams that qualified for the Club World Cup, Chelsea's season did not end with the league and continental tournament. The expanded summer showcase awaited the Blues on the back of a gruelling season, but with a big squad and a renewed confidence, Chelsea were ready to compete with the world's best.

And true to form, they spent once again — to the tune of another £150 million in incoming transfers before kicking a ball in the United States. This time though, the spending was targeted.

Among those joining Maresca's men were forwards Liam Delap and Joao Pedro, both of whom would go on to make a big impact in the Club World Cup in Chelsea's run through the tournament.

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Along with increased notoriety and confidence, progressing through the Club World Cup has taken the sting out of Chelsea's free-spending past few years, as they cemented a nine-figure cash prize for their success in the U.S.

Chelsea boosted that total substantially by doing what Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid could not do in this tournament in defeating PSG, with Sunday's runaway victory representing the pinnacle of the new era for the Blues.

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As former Chelsea player and 1998 FIFA World Cup winner Emmanuel Petit posited last week, Chelsea's victory marks the successful navigation of a significant mental hurdle for this iteration of the club.

"I think winning the Club World Cup would be really important mentally before the new Premier League season, they have struggled against top clubs and this would prove to them that they can change that," Petit said days before the final.

The gains made in the U.S., along with their earlier strides in the Premier League and Conference League, could prove invaluable when they head back across the Atlantic looking to reclaim their place among the Premier League and European elite.

This is no longer an aimless club with a lot of money and no real ideas. What returns from the United States is a Chelsea side that has finally found the right mix of player talent, aptitude in management, and yes, a big bank account, to consistently challenge for — and win — major honours.

Not bad for a team that stumbled to a 12th place finish just a couple of years ago.

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