Chelsea owners suffer biggest humbling on humiliating night that highlights gap to Europe's elite | OneFootball

Champions League defeat to PSG raises questions about BlueCo project

There are some things in football that money can’t buy. The problem for Chelsea’s owners is that a very good team is supposed to be one of the things it can.

The BlueCo consortium led by Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali’s Clearlake Capital has spent £1.5billion on players since buying the club in 2022, but Chelsea still look miles off the best sides in Europe after their Champions League humbling against Paris Saint-Germain.

An 8-2 aggregate defeat was a humiliation that raised serious questions about whether the project at Stamford Bridge is a work in progress or regress.

On a night when fans sang for former owner Roman Abramovich and the new hierarchy were in attendance, Chelsea were mauled.

PSG toyed with them in both legs. While the Blues took up some good positions, the difference in final-third quality was humungous.

Chelsea were beaten 8-2 on aggregate by PSG

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Fans began traipsing out of Stamford Bridge after the third goal on 61 minutes to steal a march on the District Line’s minor delays. But the potential repercussions of this are major: one-way tickets out of the club for Chelsea’s best players.

Chelsea spent a then-British transfer record £107million on Enzo Fernandez in 2023 but already there are rumours he might be off, and he threw petrol on that fire when, asked if he could guarantee he would be at Chelsea next season, he said: “I don’t know, we’ll see.”

The Blues play no part in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final, nor the Champions League quarter-finals, nor the Premier League title race. Their sole hope of a trophy now rests with the FA Cup in another BlueCo season that simply boils down to a push to qualify for the competition they were just obliterated in.

The fear is that their leading players get fed up and want out. Will Cole Palmer stick around if a top four/five finish is treated like the promised land? If Chelsea have kept hold of Estevao in three years’ time, they will have done well.

Chelsea will wear their grand ‘World Champions’ badge until 2029 but with greatly diminished punch now their victims in last summer’s final have dissected them by three goals, twice.

Todd Boehly was in the stands as Chelsea crashed out of the Champions League

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Boehly and Eghbali were watching on; what must they have been thinking? Glossy badge or not, if their aim is returning Chelsea to the head of Europe’s elite, one hell of a climb still awaits. Chelsea faced Arsenal three times in 46 days this winter. They lost every time.

Liam Rosenior must accept some responsibility for the slump. Picking Filip Jorgensen over Robert Sanchez in goal in Paris was ridiculous overthinking and backfired. Even with Reece James and Malo Gusto out, there were other options at right-back on Tuesday than Mamadou Sarr, bullied by Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. “Respecting the ball” is one thing, respectable defending quite another. In his 18 games: just three clean sheets.

True, Aston Villa and Liverpool look fallible in the race for Champions League, but Chelsea are just as inconsistent. Even if they sneak in, they remain so far off where they ought to be. And no amount of huddling by the centre circle is going to bridge that gap.