“He doesn’t wait long,” said Jurgen Klopp. “Does he want to bring the Harlem Globetrotters as well?” It was in September and the German was quick to mock Todd Boehly’s idea for a Premier League all-star game. The new Chelsea owner had made an impression on the long-serving Liverpool manager: just not a positive one.
Fast forward four months and, if such notional sides were picked on top-flight form, perhaps neither Liverpool nor Chelsea would need worry about their players being injured in a glorified exhibition match. They met in two cup finals last season. Now they face off as ninth and 10th in the Premier League. Boehly’s southern all-stars could instead feature more players from Brighton, Brentford and Fulham than the club with the biggest transfer outlay in any season in history.
The alternative interpretation is that Boehly intends every Chelsea match to be an all-star game. He has just signed the rising star of this season’s Champions League, in Mykhailo Mudryk, and tried to buy his World Cup counterpart, in Enzo Fernandez. Joao Felix, Atletico Madrid’s £100m prodigy, was supposed to be a global star.
Under Boehly, Chelsea have sealed deals for established stars in the Premier League, in Raheem Sterling, Serie A, in Kalidou Koulibaly, and the Bundesliga, in the coming summer’s arrival Christopher Nkunku. While in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, he has got a star striker who has proved prolific in four of the main European leagues.
He has tried to sign the most famous star of all, in Cristiano Ronaldo, and has tried to discover the next generation of stars, in youthful signings like Carney Chukwuemeka, Cesare Casedei, Gabriel Slonina, Omari Hutchinson, David Datro Fofana, Andrey Santos and, arguably, Benoit Badiashile.
What he has not got is a team. That used to be Liverpool’s defining quality. Brilliant as Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and co were, the team was the star. They were greater than the sum of their considerable parts. They bought to fit a structure, whereas Chelsea’s recruitment strategy can seem to be to see who their rivals are trying to buy and then gazump them.
They have taken different routes to mid-table and, expensive as Darwin Nunez was, Liverpool’s has not involved going crazy with the credit card. Cody Gakpo is their only January signing, to Chelsea’s five. Klopp has long dealt in a world of financial realities. “I have to tell you the money story again? After all these years?” he asked last week. In October, he said: “There are three clubs in world football who can do what they want financially.” The implication was that he meant Manchester City, Newcastle and Paris Saint-Germain, though Chelsea have outspent each in the Boehly era. That has rarely been his way, when even the big buys have been funded by sales, when his best sides have a chemistry that cannot be bought.
He has long argued that transfers are not an answer to everything; Chelsea’s new regime would appear to disagree. If Liverpool have arguably signed too few players, especially in midfield, Chelsea have bought too many. Klopp looks to find the answer within the club. Chelsea keep looking outside it. Felix, the supposed quick fix who cost £16m in wages and loan fee and was sent off 57 minutes into his debut, was emblematic of an ethos, of a culture of conspicuous consumption.
There was an early hint that Klopp disagreed with Chelsea’s approach. On a dramatic day in September, Thomas Tuchel was sacked by Chelsea before Liverpool lost 4-1 to Napoli. Perhaps to his surprise, Klopp was asked if he feared the same fate. “There are different kind of owners,” he replied. “Our owners are rather calm and expect from me to sort the situation and not expect that someone else will sort it.”
Which, so far, he has not done as successfully as he might have expected. Liverpool and Chelsea met in two famous epics of Champions League semi-finals, but each is 10 points off the top four now, requiring an outstanding run in the second half of the season.
These are different tales, with Liverpool at least capable of beating Manchester City, Tottenham and Newcastle, while Chelsea, with their record-breaking outlay, taking a mere three points against the rest of the current top 10. They are nonetheless both underachievers.
Each may look to an arrival to galvanise them in the second half of the season; with Felix suspended, Mudryk may be likelier to be parachuted in for a debut. Liverpool can note his £88m fee, including add-ons, could be double the total cost of Gakpo, whose price could reach £44m. The Dutchman’s first three games have not yielded a goal, but he joined with a stronger CV than Mudryk. It does not necessarily make him a greater guarantee of success but it is easier to detect a policy of looking for value for money at Anfield. There is more evidence of a strategy, even if this season has suggested a willingness to wait for a midfielder has a flawed element.
To the irritation of Liverpool’s fanbase, they have probably completed their business for January. Their summer recruitment will be focused on midfield. Some £400m and 13 signings later, Chelsea still seem either short of midfielders, a goalkeeper, a right-back, a striker and perhaps another central defender, or are keen to sign them anyway. All of which Klopp probably deems excessive as he wonders whether to start the teenagers Stefan Bajcetic and Harvey Elliott against Chelsea.
Each is an illustration that he tries to make his own stars, rather than relying on the fakery of the all-star gimmick that appealed to Chelsea’s owner. Should the Blues lose, the chances are that two German managers’ names will be sung, and it is a moot point if Thomas Tuchel would still be in a job if Chelsea had won two Wembley penalty shootouts against Liverpool last year. A loss for either side may rule them out of the top-four battle. Because thus far, the stars of the season are found at neither Anfield nor Stamford Bridge.
