Todd Boehly bought big, sold cheap and strengthened Chelsea’s rivals in January

It’s not just the British record £107m fee Todd Boehly paid for Enzo Fernández, who played just 29 times for Benfica, that gives the impression the Chelsea owner sees the transfer market as a gambling exercise.

The Football Manager computer game actually has an amortization feature: the accounting device Boehly has used to dish out large transfers and avoid breaking spending rules. ‘Genius!’ claims one of the players’ websites that catches the attention of the players.

That’s not the word many would choose to describe the American, who spent more money on transfers last month than all the clubs in Serie A, the Bundesliga, La Liga and Ligue 1 combined.

One of the common conclusions on Wednesday, as the dust settled over Chelsea’s spending frenzy that followed the outlay of more than £250m last summer, was that the club had bought big and sold cheap.

There was astonishment in some circles that Jorginho was signed by Arsenal for £12m, despite not having a contract this summer.

Chelsea owner Todd Boehly has spent a lot of money since taking over the club in the summer.

The American has spent heavily on new players since acquiring the property, including Mykhaylo Mudryk, who came for £88m.

Chelsea’s January splurge concluded on deadline day with the £107m purchase of Enzo Fernandez

Arsenal were in a bind, desperate for a player of his caliber given Mohamed Elneny’s extended injury layoff, and at the very least, Chelsea could have weakened their rivals by refusing to deal at less than double the price. But on the other side of London, this proven Premier League player is gone.

Craziness. A metaphor for Chelsea’s lack of understanding of the market or their own priorities. They have spent £88m to buy Mykhailo Mudryk, who has appeared just 44 times for Shakhtar Donetsk, but have yet to sort out N’Golo Kante’s contract situation.

The club’s spending of over £300m in January is historic, unprecedented and raises many questions about where football goes from here.

If Fernandez is worth £107 million, what is Declan Rice worth? 200 million pounds? The way Chelsea accounts for everything will certainly not be the same for whoever is making that decision. The big spenders of winter have made sure of that.

Just as the rampant spending of the Roman Abramovich era (Fernando Torres’ £50m helicopter ride from Liverpool to London in 2011) brought UEFA’s rules of financial fair play into play, the creative accounting of early period Boehly has closed the door on anyone attempting more colorful write-downs.

Any signing made after this summer will be subject to a new maximum five-year contract. Mudryk’s seven and a half years, spreading the cost, will be a thing of the past. But those new rules are unlikely to have a major effect on transfer fees.

“I don’t see them having a negative impact on the market,” says University of Liverpool’s Kieran Maguire, noting that the shorter contracts did not stop the £200m fees PSG paid for Neymar and Kylian Mbappe.

More significant is the potential deflationary effect in the European leagues. It will be harder for clubs to maintain the strong television deals, which allow them to compete on the transfer market, when the dominance of the Premier League, now broadcast to 188 countries, is so unforgiving. In Italy, 500,000 Serie A subscribers have been lost.

Boehly has shown creative new ways to find the money to buy big-name players, like in the summer and in January.

Chelsea broke British transfer record by paying £107m to sign Fernandez from Benfica

Will Chelsea be able to compete to win the competition they have invested in to such an incredible degree? They also have Benoit Badiashile and Noni Madueke on 7 1/2-year contracts with an option for another 12 months, and Malo Gusto and Wesley Fofana on 6 1/2-year contracts.

Good if they all work. Not so much if the club is stuck for years with wages, bonuses, negotiated wage increases and fighting to get such highly paid players out.

The one you fear in all of this is Graham Potter, who somehow still needs a striker, and yet requires all of his man-management powers to keep everyone happy, when there are so many newcomers vying for the same positions.

Chelsea also announced the long-term signing of young defender Benoit Badiashile.

The American co-owner spent more than £300m on the January chants as an influx of players arrived.

No fewer than 37 players have come and gone from Chelsea since last summer. UEFA rules state that Potter can only name four of his eight new signings in his Champions League squad for the next few weeks.

With results that are not what they could have been and the team 10 points out of the top four, the position of the coach does not seem as enviable as one might think. Boehly will say that everything is fine. That the club has been daring and imaginative. He will be confident. The players usually are.