Mauricio Pochettino is used to working on a small budget. His Tottenham team spent just £127.5 million ($160.5m) net over the five and a half years he was at the club. For his full seasons that number is only just more than £50million ($62.9m).
It was a spell built on efficiency, squeezing every last ounce of talent from a dedicated bunch and founded from the ruthless and demanding ways of their head coach. At Paris Saint-Germain he was working with a squad that had spent more than his entire Tottenham net spend on just two players between 2020 and 2021.
The success across both journeys was differing. Spurs were one of the best pound-for-pound sides in Europe across his time there, finishing second, third and fourth in the final three full seasons. They reached a Champions League final, two FA Cup semi-finals and a League Cup final.
For a club competing above their paygrade and with sides that could outspend them at will, it was a success. For PSG, despite turning them around from obscurity to champions, he was unable to stop the second season slide and left after just 18 months. With raised stakes, more funding and increased pressure, Pochettino couldn't scale up his success.
Comparing PSG to Tottenham is unfair, though. The Parisiens are unlike any other club in world football. Chelsea, though, boast similarly wasteful and inefficient use of money in recent years. Their outlay for 2022/23 alone is more than Tottenham spent net over the past decade.
For that reason, and the pressures of being the second largest net spenders since 2013/14, Todd Boehly and Co need to balance the books. Although it wasn't their fault that there was yet again another sizeable loss for the 2021/22 accounts, the Americans are facing a much worse set of numbers to come.
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Even with plans for increased and revamped commercial and marketing operations, a redevelopment of Stamford Bridge and a more branding-friendly face of the club, none of that will see much reward in the short-term. The Blues are already the first club to record over £1 billion ($1.26bn) in losses since the Premier League's inception.
To stop that number from getting markedly worse they will need to act, and act fast. In just over two weeks the shut-off point for accounts for the 2022/23 financial year will leave them facing worrying times if nothing changes. After record spends in both the summer and winter windows, Boehly and Co don't just have to think about offering Pochettino an easier squad environment but also the repercussions of not hitting Financial Fair Play bands.
Being out of the Champions League somewhat negates the threat, given they will not be under the jurisdiction of UEFA next season.
What Boehly-Clearlake Capital must consider, though, is how the financial demands and restrictions could delay and effectively stop meaningful transfer activity for Pochettino. He has done well on a shoe-string budget before but domestic cup finals and top four finishes are not the end goal for the new head coach.
First, he is to establish Chelsea at the top of the English game and then he needs to kick on. With better resourced, intelligently ran clubs competing for the top half of the league and above, Chelsea know they need to do more than just blow opposition out of the water.
Should they enter July having not sold players they want to rid themselves of then financial pressure will start to take its toll. The chances of recruiting big-money targets such as Victor Osimhen, Moises Caicedo or even Neymar all appear off the table if first there is not a strategy to bank the funds from sales for Christian Pulisic, Hakim Ziyech, Mateo Kovacic and many others.
Kovacic, Mason Mount and Ruben Loftus-Cheek are the closest to leaving at this stage but none are surefire to be done by June 30. Pulisic is one of the most sellable assets on the books but he is first set for international action and holiday before realistic conversations over a transfer take place.
Conor Gallagher is a player that football.london now expects to leave rather than remain part of the furniture at Stamford Bridge. He is another that is attractive due to being English, young and Premier League proven. Although the club would ideally like to keep him on the books, if June roles on with no signs of players heading off for reasonable sums of cash, it can only be assumed Gallagher will become a priority outgoing instead.
If these deals cannot be secured then it is only too likely that Pochettino will once again be forced to work with limited funds like Daniel Levy and Tottenham left him in the final years in north London. Spurs were roundly criticised for wasting the money that came in for Gareth Bale when he moved to Real Madrid in 2013, meaning Pochettino's spending power was severly limited.
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