SIMON JORDAN: Yes, Chelsea’s spending is obscene… but it makes no sense to pull the plug on Mauricio Pochettino

• It is embarrassing Chelsea squad is not fit for purpose after spending £1billion
• Chelsea’s owners must admit their mistakes and back Mauricio Pochettino 
• Todd Boehly reminds me of the rich drunk guy at a sporting memorabilia night with the players Chelsea have bought – Listen to It’s All Kicking Off 

Chelsea have spent a preposterous, obscene sum of money under their new owners and achieved very little.

But despite their profligacy in the transfer market, I’m not surprised Mauricio Pochettino wants to spend again in the January transfer window.

It’s what managers do. It’s like the scorpion and the frog. What do you expect to happen? Managers always want more, especially when they’re working for people who spend money like water but still end up with a side incapable of scoring goals.

Pochettino should be doing a better job but if he’s not comfortable with what he’s got and wants something better then you have to back him. Chelsea are in for a penny, they might as well be in for the pound.

I’m not convinced about Pochettino and have my doubts he’ll lead Chelsea to the promised land but having spent so long trying to get him and then giving him all this money to strengthen an already expensively assembled squad, you’ve got to have another twist of the dial.

Chelsea have gone backwards despite over £1billion of investment into the playing squad

Mauricio Pochettino has called for further spending in January to address the Blues problems

Mail Sport columnist Simon Jordan (pictured) has doubts Pochettino will lead Chelsea to the promised land

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You either back him or you don’t. Chelsea were prepared to back Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter with £600million on new players so, as ridiculous as it sounds, Chelsea probably do have to go again with Pochettino.

The problem for the Chelsea manager is that the more he asks for and less he achieves, the quicker his sell-by date comes up. He has been complicit in some of the club’s profligacy by failing to get the best from expensive new signings so cannot be completely insulated from errors made in the past.

The club have made flawed decisions in their managerial appointments that weren’t right from the get-go. They were wrong with Potter and wrong with Frank Lampard who made things even worse. They have done nothing to enhance their investment or the football club with either of those appointments, in fact the polar opposite.

So it’s not surprising that the sins of their ridiculous spending are landing at the feet of a manager who may have the capability to take them where they want to be. Pochettino has spent big – £470m although it’s more like £175m net – but his outlay has been comparatively small compared to his predecessors and the drunken sailor spending of the club’s first two transfer windows under Todd Boehly.

The fact a club can spend over £1billion – probably around £700m net – and still end up with a squad not fit for purpose is embarrassing.

They’ve wasted much of that on average players. The ownership has made wrong decisions and failed to listen to the right people. They’ve overpaid for so many players – Enzo Fernandez was too much at £106m, Wesley Fofana cost £70m but has spent most of the time on the treatment-room table, Mykhailo Mudryk has been a waste of £88m so far, Raheem Sterling hasn’t done particularly well following his £50m move from Manchester City and Marc Cucurella doesn’t look like a £60m player. The list goes on.

So I don’t look at this situation with any surprise. Chelsea have taken several steps backwards under new ownership and simply aren’t functioning properly.

Chelsea’s owners got it wrong with Graham Potter (left) and Frank Lampard last season

Chelsea have wasted money by vastly overpaying for players during the Todd Boehly regime

Their form over the last year or so has been nowhere near good enough. You can either get into a blame culture and tell the manager this isn’t good enough and you’re partly responsible or you can sort it out. 

The default setting for any manager with a team that isn’t functioning and is coming under pressure is to look somewhere else for a solution – and that somewhere else is usually the owner’s wallet. If I was in Chelsea’s position I would accept that despite the huge outlay, they haven’t got what they need. With a reluctant eye and a weary ear I’d say ‘ok, what is it you think we need and what will he give us?’.

The reality of it is that you have to believe in the process. If you believe in the manager and accept that the tools you have given him aren’t good enough, then you have to go along with it. But if you believe he wasted money on players who have not been fit for purpose then you have a degree of trepidation about what he’s going to spend your money on next.

Does Pochettino deserve to be trusted with yet more funds? Has he indicated that he’s got some degree of control over where things are going but just needs a few more ingredients? Critics will ask how much more he needs to be given to succeed. The problem for the owners is that they have already set this standard and spent over £600m before he even arrived and were dreadful.

Further spending will obviously generate headlines given what has gone before but let’s get it right, spending £60m in January on a striker is not going to destroy Chelsea. It would, however, be absurd to drop another £200m if Pochettino wants a new goalkeeper, new full-backs and whatever else in next month’s transfer window.

Chelsea must find the balance between the here and now and what they think they’re going to be. If they’re comfortable with longer-term positioning and are going to insulate their manager from short-term problems, then keep going and back him a little further. It would be counter-productive to pull the plug now.

Mykhailo Mudryk is among the players brought in for big money who have failed to deliver

Chelsea look likely to invest in a striker in January as Nicolas Jackson continues to struggle

There is very little to admire though. Chelsea’s actions since the takeover in 2022 betray a lack of understanding of the industry and their propensity to make bold decisions is not clever and it’s not commendable. The result? They keep on making the same mistakes because they don’t have the right people around them.

When Boehly and his gang bought the club they said they were prepared to spend £1.75bn but there seems to have been a rush to spend it. They need to be more like a sniper in the transfer market, identify what is missing and provide a solution rather than their scattergun approach which is akin to a Bugsy Malone splurge gun firing custard pies everywhere.

So far it’s been like some sort of ridiculous version of Brewster’s Millions, getting rid of as much cash as they can but it can’t go on forever if they want to get back to the top.

Scrapping the 3pm Saturday blackout could work for everyone

The Premier League’s new broadcast deal has prompted more debate around the 3pm Saturday blackout.

The ban on broadcasting live football at the traditional Saturday afternoon kick-off time dates back to the 1960s and the introduction of Match of the Day. The feeling then was that showing a game live on TV would negatively impact attendances in the lower leagues.

There is a school of thought that believes that is still the case but it’s time to move with the times. Removing this relic of a rule would not diminish attendances for top flight or Championship clubs and while I do concede it might impact smaller clubs, that’s where those lower down the food chain must get creative.

If removing the 3pm blackout means Football League clubs can get 20 per cent of TV distributions rather than the current lower portion, then all of a sudden there’s a pot of maybe £750m to go around rather than the £300m they’re currently given.

Clubs might lose a few hundred match-going fans if the blackout was lifted but even if they lost a couple of hundred thousand a year as a result, the additional revenue they’d receive from greater distribution would provide an attractive trade-off. If a live audience inside stadiums is fundamentally important to outcomes on the pitch then clubs need to find a way that negates those concerns.

The latest Premier League television deal has prompted discussion around the 3pm blackout

Concerns have been raised that scrapping the blackout could lead to a fall in attendances

An agreement to lift the Saturday 3pm blackout in exchange for a greater share of Premier League broadcast money could ultimately benefit clubs in the Football League

IT’S ALL KICKING OFF! 

It’s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football.

It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify.

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Get creative and offer discounted tickets, kids for a quid or package deals. I refuse to accept that lifting the blackout would damage attendances if clubs are proactive. If they are and maintain their expected gates and receive a greater share of the distribution from the Premier League TV deal, then I can’t see a downside. It’s a no-brainer.

Our habits as a society have changed since the days when the 3pm blackout was introduced. The world was a very different place with no shops open on Sundays, you didn’t do this, didn’t do that, but society is now completely fluid so why wouldn’t football pivot from some ridiculous notion that the 3pm blackout is sacrosanct and something to be protected at all costs?

There is a way of making it work for everyone – Premier League clubs, EFL clubs and fans but does football possess the out-of-the-box thinking to make it work for everyone? I have my doubts.

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