Jamie Carragher has made a passionate defence of his claim that Manchester United should make a move for Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel after the West London club was put up for sale and hit with operating restrictions.
After 20 years of success under the ownership of Roman Abramovich, the future of the Blues has been thrown into disarray, when the oligarch was hit by UK Government sanctions - as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine - leading to the imminent sale of the club.
With Chelsea now forced to operate under a special license that forbids them from making signings and even selling matchday tickets, former Liverpool defender Carragher suggested that now was the perfect moment for United to try and tempt Blues boss Tuchel to Old Trafford.
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Television pundit Carragher has received fierce criticism from Chelsea supporters for publicly making the suggestion.
But with an opportunity to respond on Sky Sports' Monday Night Football, he didn't hold back...
Carragher said: "I had a few heated discussions at Stamford Bridge yesterday.
"I wouldn’t change my opinion on it [Tuchel to Man Utd] and the reason why I think it’s a little bit hypocritical of Chelsea supporters is that if teams - whether that’s Manchester United with the manager or people thinking they can get Chelsea players, are going to take advantage of the situation that they’re in right now - Chelsea have been doing that for 20 years.
"That was the big thing of Roman Abramovich coming. ‘We can throw our money about and we can get who we want, we’re going to go to Manchester United, the first thing we do, we’re going to get Peter Kenyon their CEO, we’ll go to Liverpool and take the best midfielder in Europe and destabilise that club for two summers, we’ll go and get Ashley Cole, invincible, we’ll get caught tapping up, doesn't matter, we’ll play the fine, England flying at the time with Sven-Goran Eriksson, no we want him as Chelsea manager, we’ll pay the fine don’t worry’."
"They win the Youth Cup every year or get into the final, not because they have the best coaches or the best academy, but because they go and basically take the best players from every club within this country and relocate the family."
Carragher's suggestion that the chickens have now come home to roost for Chelsea may be blunt in its delivery, but he remained firm in his belief that rival teams taking advantage of their new-found vulnerability was possible.
He added: "Chelsea football club have taken advantage of every other club in the last 20 years because of Roman Abramovich.
"So if I give an opinion of another club taking advantage of them, that’s just a way of life.
"I don’t want Chelsea to go to the wall. But that’s my opinion of it, I don’t want Chelsea fans the next time I go there questioning that opinion because that is exactly what Chelsea have done for the last 20 years."
