Chelsea are a byword for loadsamoney profligacy

IN the aftermath of the Carabao Cup final, the prize for missing the point went to a doggedly determined band of numbercrunchers who worked out the average age of the Chelsea team who finished the game was younger than Liverpool’s. Congratulations on your perspicacity and good luck in, one day, locating your soul. Because even if the facts are correct, they also help to tell the story of why Chelsea are, in their current guise, a byword for loadsamoney profligacy. Malo Gusto, Chelsea’s excellent right back, was the youngest player on the Chelsea side that finished the game. He is 20 years old. Chelsea paid Lyon £30million for him. Levi Colwill, another fine defender, was the next youngest. He is 21 and he is a product of Chelsea’s academy system. Cole Palmer’s next. He’s 21, he’s a languidly brilliant midfielder and he cost £42m. Then it’s Noni Madueke. He’s 21, too, and he cost £35m. And then it’s Moises Caicedo. He’s 22 and he cost £115m and he is the most expensive player in British transfer history. Then it’s Mykhailo Mudryk. He’s 23 and he cost £88m. I could go on and mention Enzo Fernandez, who is 23 and a World Cup winner and cost £105m, but by now even the brains in the Chelsea stats department who have, apparently, constructed modelling that suggests they are actually fifth in the Premier League, not 11th, have probably got the point. The point is that Chelsea’s co-owners, Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali thought they could buy a youth team. They threw a billion pounds at the situation and created a Frankenstein’s monster of a squad that Mauricio Pochettino is still desperately trying to fashion into a unit with some sort of Liverpool and Klopp did it differently.