If you judge the efficiency of a football club by how much it over- or under-performs given its resources, the best-managed club in the Premier League, Brighton, visits the worst-managed club, Chelsea, in third place in the Carabao Cup . tonight at Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea have spent £1 billion gross in the three transfer windows since Todd Boehly and his partners completed their takeover of Chelsea at the end of May last year. And the team has gotten worse.
In 2022-2023, Chelsea under Thomas Tuchel, then Graham Potter, then Bruno Saltor (briefly) and then Frank Lampard scored 38 goals in 38 league games, with only Wolves, Bournemouth, Everton and Southampton scoring fewer.
Who needs continuity or patience? Um, Chelsea does.
Last season they finished a dismal twelfth place, with five other London clubs above them, including the titans Brentford, Fulham and Crystal Palace. And now that we’ve signed Mauricio Pochettino, we’ve gone backwards. They sit fourteenth in the league today, having won one of six games this season and scoring five goals in those six games.
Chelsea have spent £1 billion since Todd Boehly (pictured) joined the club last year
But Chelsea continue to decline under Mauricio Pochettino and are currently fourteenth in the Premier League
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By contrast, Brighton, which has never won a major trophy in its 122-year history so far, is in third place behind Manchester City, who have won five of the last six Premier League titles and are the reigning European champions, and Liverpool , 19-time champion of England and six-time winner of the European Cup/Champions League.
Digging a little deeper into the finances, Chelsea’s wage bill is around three times bigger than Brighton’s. That billion pounds Chelsea have spent on players in just over a year is around £500 million more than Brighton have spent combined in the last thirty years.
Chelsea have paid Brighton a whopping £200m for just three players in recent times, with the Seagulls making £180.5m PROFIT combined from the sales of Moises Caicedo, Marc Cucurella and Robert Sanchez to the Blues.
Oh, and Chelsea also had to pay Brighton £21.5 million in compensation for luring Graham Potter away last season. And then Chelsea had to pay Potter £13million in compensation when they sacked him after seven months.
Chelsea paid Brighton a British record fee of £115 million for Moises Caicedo this summer
They also spent the money to sign goalkeeper Robert Sanchez from the Seagulls
Brighton’s Talent ID has helped them sign Ansu Fati (left) and Evan Ferguson (right) in recent years
As MailSport reported on Sunday, after a week behind the scenes at Brighton, the philosophy at the Amex Stadium has a basis in long-term thinking, brilliant talent identification, buying low and selling high. Every member of staff, from the groundskeeper to the manager, is encouraged to perform through brilliant facilities and a lucrative performance-related bonus structure.
Brighton CEO Paul Barber told me how he received a call from Chelsea’s Boehly at 7.10am on Wednesday, September 7 last year. “Hi Paul, we would like your permission to speak with Graham Potter,” Boehly said.
“But Tuchel is your manager,” Barber replied.
“Not anymore, we fired him last night,” Boehly said.
Barber allowed Potter to talk to Chelsea and then leave, for an appropriately significant compensation package. And then he went on to hire Roberto De Zerbi, who turned out to be a major upgrade.
The meticulous succession planning at Brighton means that Barber has been one and four specific candidates for each of the 25 ‘mission-critical’ posts at the club, written in an evolving document so that he can always act as a head of department or other key figure, such as the manager , leaves.
Brighton’s technical director David Weir told MailSport last week about the club’s player recruitment process, and how data is a hugely important factor, particularly the ‘secret sauce’ algorithm developed by club owner and professional gambler Tony Bloom.
This dataset rates more players in more markets in more ways than any other system and has been consistently good at buying big talent young and relatively cheap for years.
Weir says the club normally plans two transfer windows in advance and sometimes follows players for much longer, often getting to know them or at least their personalities, sometimes several years before they make a move.
For now, it’s part of the sell to a potential new recruit that Brighton is an excellent ‘entry-level club to the Premier League’ and that, like so many others in recent times, joining the club could well be a route to career in the Premier League. ‘Big 6’ club, be it Liverpool, or Arsenal, or even Chelsea.
Roberto De Zerbi has chosen his side increasingly strongly in the past year
Much of their success can be attributed to their recruiting algorithm, developed by owner Tony Bloom (left)
“It’s part of our business model,” Weir says. Barber reiterates that while they hope Brighton achieve more, they can keep players for longer because they can offer European football, development, stability and an ambitious working environment.
Chelsea, on the other hand, and so far under the new owners, have exuded short-termism and adopted a chaotic and expensive approach. Their squad is still bloated and while they are capable of attractive play, they are clearly lacking in confidence, cohesion and end product, not least up front.
No doubt both managers will rotate their starting XI tonight. Chelsea has no European involvement this year and is far from being a title candidate. Maybe they should concentrate on the domestic cups.
For now, Brighton has no reason to think it can’t do better than last year’s sixth-place finish, although Europa League action will almost certainly take its toll. There’s no reason why they can’t excel in competitions like tonight’s, when clubs at the other end of the sensible spectrum have the chance to make things better, if not better.