The Emerging Genius of Clearlake’s Chelsea Transfer Strategy

The Chelsea transfer strategy has been the talk of football at times. Complaints of their young approach, the player hoarding, and labels like Gary Neville’s notorious “billion pound bottle jobs” line have followed them ever since Clearlake Capital took over from Roman Abramovich. Despite all of that, it appears the American ownership are going to have the last laugh as their transfer policy looks better with each passing window.

Chelsea Transfer Strategy Looks More Promising With Each Window

First Summer Woes

The first summer under the new ownership was quite the mess, and one that likely scared Clearlake into their current mentality. Todd Boehly was forced to take the reins and handle transfer business that summer, leading to less than optimal deals being done to support Thomas Tuchel, who was sacked early into the season regardless.

In that window, the Blues paid out £34 million (all transfer fees taken from Transfermarkt) for an ageing Kalidou Koulibaly, spent even more on Raheem Sterling and handed him a ridiculous contract, signed an ageing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, among other business that led to a pretty massive outlay of £550 million on players for a squad that performed so poorly on the pitch.

After a poor campaign under Tuchel/Graham Potter/interim Frank Lampard the ownership realised their problem. They had old, poorly performing players locked in to contracts that made them difficult to move on. They got extremely lucky in their first 12 months that the Saudi league started investing heavily, as they were the only place willing to take Koulibaly and the out-of-form Edouard Mendy.

A Change in Ethos

That takes us to what shifted when the new ownership finally got settled and were able to set their own plans in place. That first year proved to be the scare they needed to move to a much healthier policy. Take Manchester United as a current example of why Boehly’s initial approach was wrong.

The Red Devils entered this summer after an awful season, needing a major overhaul of players to rebuild for Ruben Amorim. The problem? There’s no market for an underperforming Jadon Sancho, Rasmus Hojlund, or Alejandro Garnacho as the clubs who would be willing to take a chance on them simply can’t afford their wage demands. Even Antony, who had a relatively successful loan spell at Betis has come back to Old Trafford instead of finding a new home.

This is the kind of problem that the new Chelsea transfer strategy has been aiming to avoid. A lot was made about the team’s new wage structure which preferred to offer lower base salaries but with performance boosts to even the playing field. While this may limit the pool of potential talents, it does mean that the Blues are almost never short of suitors for players, even when they aren’t in great form.

Why It Works

The ethos of Clearlake Capital over the past few windows has been simple. Sign young players, get them locked in to a decent wage structure, and have a big competitive squad so the cream rises to the top. The reason this is preferred to say Manchester United’s approach is United will find it difficult to move on from a Casemiro or Harry Maguire as they’re older players with less value, even Marcus Rashford is 27 and likely won’t command a huge fee.

Compare that to Joao Felix, a player who had a poor loan at AC Milan and for most clubs would be an unmovable weight. His modest wages and near-prime age have made him a sellable asset with Benfica initially interested and Saudi Arabia currently leading the race for him.

It’s not just Felix either, Djordje Petrovic wasn’t able to work his way into the first team under Enzo Maresca despite a strong loan at Strasbourg. Because he was a young prospect bought for cheap on modest wages, he made a profitable move to Bournemouth for £25 million.

Noni Madueke is another one. A player who has been decent for the Blues but never amazing. He has time to grow and enter his prime meaning they were able to offload him to Arsenal for £48 million. That kind of fee isn’t something you can command for a 28-year-old squad player earning £150-200,000 per week.

That is why, over time, Clearlake Capital look like geniuses. Sure, they’ve spent a lot of money and they sign an unbelievable amount of players, but it is a very calculated, low-risk situation in most cases. For every one Cole Palmer who becomes a world beater, there’s a Madueke, Angelo or Petrovic who they can easily shift for a profit.

It avoids the squad becoming overrun with dead weight who are incapable of finding a move away, there’s no more Baba Rahman’s or Malang Sarr’s being brought in by Chelsea. There’s only prospects who are going to retain or improve their value while being kept on a modest weekly wage that widens their market to a broader range of clubs.