Todd Boehly has has been placed under the harsh glare of the spotlight again as concerns are raised over the American billionaire’s heavy, direct involvement in the transfer market and the dressing room.<\/p>\n
Former Chelsea defender William Gallas has urged Todd Boehly to caution restraint and keep his distance so as to allow the management team to formulate a comprehensive transfer strategy with the next Chelsea manager. Immediately after the takeover of the club, the American billionaire appointed himself as interim sporting director, spending over \u00a3250million on players in the summer.<\/p>\n
The new faces are Wesley Fofana, Raheem Sterling, Carney Chukwuemeka, Marc Cucurella, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Kalidou Koulibaly \u2013 but now the futures of three of those look increasingly uncertain at the club.<\/p>\n
Even after appointing Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley as co-sporting directors, Boehly has still been spotted heading anxiously for the dressing room after games at Stamford Bridge, raising anxiety levels all round as a result.<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Games Cabin<\/em>, Gallas highlighted his concern with the co-owner’s heavy involvement with day-to-day duties and even cautioned Boehly that football is a game totally different from baseball.<\/p>\n “The players in the squad have a lot of quality, but I believe the problem is that the owner didn\u2019t have a strategy,” said Gallas. “The club just buys and buys players.<\/p>\n “I don\u2019t even know if Graham Potter wanted to sign those players either, it just looked as if the owner and his staff were deciding who to sign for Chelsea. They\u2019re Americans and they\u2019ve got experience in the sport of baseball. Football is completely different to baseball.”<\/p>\n With Mauricio Pochettino emerging as the frontrunner for the vacant head coach position at Chelsea, Gallas has encouraged Boehly to give the incoming 51-year-old freedom in the transfer market.<\/p>\n The Frenchman added: “I think they\u2019re going to understand their wrongdoings now because they\u2019ve failed this season. They now know that the manager has to agree on which players the club is signing, because the manager is the best person to identify which players fit into their system.<\/p>\n “I\u2019m not going to say it\u2019s the worst team I\u2019ve seen since my affiliation with Chelsea began, but the position they\u2019re in isn\u2019t a good one. As a former player, it\u2019s sad to see what\u2019s currently happening at Chelsea. For the rest of the season, the players just need to respect the shirt they\u2019re wearing and perform as well as they possibly can going into next season.”<\/p>\n Former United defender and Skh Sports pundit Gary Neville had also previously questioned Boehly following his decision to sack Graham Potter.<\/p>\n Speaking on Sky Sports earlier this month, Neville said: “He\u2019s been prominent all season calling it a long-term project, now all of a sudden we\u2019re seeing Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart quite a lot in the last few days.<\/p>\n “Obviously Winstanley was with Graham Potter at Brighton and look, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re surprised by the sacking, but if you\u2019re going to sack someone you must have been thinking about in the last two or three weeks.<\/p>\n “Why didn\u2019t they do it before the international break?” added Neville. “Have those couple of weeks to have a breather \u2013 I thought they\u2019d have someone in but the briefings coming out of Chelsea are that they weren\u2019t expecting to sack Potter before Saturday and that they haven\u2019t got anybody lined up and it\u2019s not going to be imminent.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"