Todd Boehly and Chelsea’s mad spending spree ahead of deadline, Arsenal quietly add depth for title hunt

So this is what happened. The transfer window slammed shut, but not without causing a lot of drama, with Chelsea naturally taking center stage. I’m Mike Goodman and welcome to the Golazo Starting XI Newsletter. Let’s recap what a wild deadline day was.

New to the Golazo Starting XI Newsletter? Get the best deal in football and subscribe now to ensure you receive updates three times a week.

📺 On Paramount+ or CBS Sports Network

🇮🇹 Coppa Italia action
⚽ Fiorentina vs. Turin, Wednesday, 12 p.m. ➡️ Paramount+
⚽ Roma vs Cremonese, Wednesday 3pm ➡️ Paramount+
⚽ Juventus vs Lazio, Thursday 3pm ➡️ Paramount+

The Scottish Premier League
⚽ Kilmarnock vs Dundee United, Wednesday 2:45pm ➡️ Paramount+

📺 What else we keep an eye on

⚽ EFL Cup Semi-Finals: Manchester United vs Nottingham Forest, Wednesday 3pm
⚽ La Liga: Real Betis vs Barcelona, ​​Wednesday, 3pm
⚽ La Liga: Real Madrid vs Valencia, Thursday 3pm

🤑 Chelsea spent A LOT of money

Is there anything left to say about Chelsea? Well, it’s my job to say things, so I’ll try. Chelsea signed eight players in this window! EIGHT. Here is the total yield. 💸

• Benfica’s Enzo Fernandez – €121m
• Mykhailo Mudryk from Shakhtar – €70m
• Monaco’s Benoit Badiashile – €38m
• PSV’s Noni Madueke – €35m
• Malo Gusto from Lyon – €30m
• Vasco Da Gama’s Andrey Santos – €12.5m
• David Datro Fofana from Molde – €12 million
• Atlético Madrid’s Joao Felix – €11m (loan)

Since the summer, we’re seeing roughly over $669 million in net signings. Even at a time when the wealth of the Premier League is increasingly eclipsing the rest of the world’s leagues, this is a staggering amount of money to spend. The plan as it stands seems to be simple, buy lots of young players on cheaper deals, hope they do well and then hope they will be happy to play on the long contracts that Chelsea have she signed. It’s not impossible for this plan to work, but you’ll need to drop at least three dominoes for it all to come to fruition.

First: Players have to be good enough to play for a Chelsea team that always aims to be one of the best in the world. Even great prospects are no guarantee.

Second: If the players develop into Chelsea-caliber talent, then this plan still requires them to enjoy playing for the long-term contracts they’ve signed. Boehly’s plan with Chelsea was to pay exorbitant fees up front in exchange for locking players into long contracts with decent wages. The point of this plan only holds if wages remain reasonable as players improve.

Third: These players have to work under multiple managers (or a manager has to stay long). Again, the plan is to pay the cost up front to buy young people and build a stable corps for years to come. But that means relatively few roster adjustments will need to be made going forward, which means either having a manager at the helm, or finding new managers willing to take on a roster with little room for change. That would mean stability in the coming years.

Alternative, Chelsea could just keep spending like drunk sailors forever on the shore. Paying high fees now to pay less later is at least one theory of how it all might make sense. But theories tend to struggle when a team like Chelsea goes through several months of underperforming.

Sponsored by Paramount+

🏆 Arsenal is building depth for the title challenge

It wasn’t the transfer window Arsenal expected, but it may have been the one they needed. explains James Benge.