Chelsea, Newcastle United and the £487m faultline – Very revealing | OneFootball

Chelsea and Newcastle United are two very different clubs.

Geographically separated by almost 300 miles.

Whilst the disparity in the inherent identities of the two clubs and their fanbases, are beyond measurement.

In terms of success on the pitch, Chelsea and Newcastle United couldn’t be more different.

Before football was invented by Sky Sports in 1992, with the advent of the Premier League rebranding, just look at what had gone before.

Newcastle United with ten major (league titles and/or FA Cups) domestic trophies, four of one and six of the other.

Whilst Chelsea had two precisely one of each of those.

Indeed, by the end of the 1954/55 season, Newcastle United had won all of those 10 major domestic trophies.

Newcastle United were formed in 1892 and so only 63 years later they’d picked up those ten trophies to at that point be only behind Aston Villa, who I think had picked up 12 (six FA Cups and six top tier titles).

Ironically, that very same season when Newcastle United won their last domestic trophy, Chelsea won their first ever! Yes, 1955 seeing Chelsea crowned top tier champions, whilst United won the FA Cup at Wembley.

Chelsea managed a couple of FA Cups in the 1990s but having lived beyond their means they were on the verge of going bust, when along came Roman Abramovich to buy Chelsea fans untold riches in terms of trophies. The media and Premier League seeing nothing wrong at all with any of this, certainly not to anything beyond minimal questions asked.

It took the then UK Government to force him out. As a close ally of Putin we saw Roman Abramovich forced to sell Chelsea due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

That UK Government approving USA buyers of Chelsea, paying a purchase price of £2.5billion and with a commitment to invest a further £1.75billion in the club.

A case of spot the difference.

Indeed, after what Abramovich was allowed to get away with in terms of simply buying trophies at Chelsea, Boehly and his mates have taken it to arguably a whole different level, in terms of the financial/accountancy stunts they are pulling and how they are allowed to get away with it.

Yet it is Newcastle United who are the ones supposedly the biggest risk there has ever been to football in this country….

This is Chelsea who have spent over £1.5billion on players from summer 2024 onwards. This a club that gets crowds of less than 40,000 for home matches.

In this Alice in Wonderland world turned upside down modern football, Chelsea widely seen as a ‘big’ club.

Where would they have been if Abramovich hadn’t been allowed to do as he pleased and indeed, where would they be now if these American owners hadn’t been allowed to do pretty much the same these last two and a half years?

In less than a week, two Newcastle United matches against Chelsea could massively dictate what direction this NUFC season is heading in. Indeed, if some of the more extreme sections of the Newcastle United fanbase got their way, they would love to force Eddie Howe out, if it all goes wrong for United in these next two games. Who knows what direction our team and club would be heading in BUT I doubt very much it would be a route to future success.

These past few years, we are all used to any positivity at Newcastle United to be always accompanied by negative media reporting about the club’s ownership and how NUFC now operate.

Yet with Chelsea, anything positive at Stamford Bridge is rarely, if ever, accompanied by serious questions and red flags raised, as to exactly how this relative success is being underpinned. By their current owners and the very dubious ways they are allowed to fund and operate at Chelsea.

Which brings me back to these two upcoming meetings with Newcastle United.

On Thursday night, Chelsea changed all eleven players from their Premier League side that faced Liverpool on Sunday.

For their 4-1 Conference League away win, Chelsea lined up with Jorgensen, Cucurella, Veiga, Badiashile, Disasi, Fernandez, Dewsbury-Hall, Mudryk, Neto, Felix, Nkunku

As it happens, this entire Chelsea reserve side that replaced their Premier League eleven that faced Liverpool, were ALL bought in during this latest American ownership era, signed from the summer 2022 transfer window onwards.

£20m Jorgensen

£54m Cucurella

£12m Veiga

£32m Badiashile

£37m Disasi

£101m Fernandez

£30m Dewsbury-Hall

£58m Mudryk

£50m Neto

£43m Felix

To me, those Transfermarkt transfer fee estimates look very much on the low side.

However, even if we take their figures, that Chelsea reserve team adds up to £487m. A Chelsea reserve team all bought by this current ownership.

That doesn’t of course the other £1billion+ spent on numerous other players by Chelsea from summer 2022 onwards.

That £487m paid out by Chelsea for this reserve team in the last five windows is more than Newcastle United’s entire squad has cost.

This shows just what Newcastle United are up against in these next two games against Chelsea AND indeed what they are up against overall, in somehow trying to bridge the gap to what Chelsea and others are allowed to do financially, on top of their already dominant financial positions and indeed the power and strengths of their clubs overall.

I called it a £487m ‘faultline’, in reference to how Chelsea can put out an entire changed reserve team all purchased in less than two and a half years under their latest owners.

A definition of fault line is ‘a divisive issue or difference of opinion that is likely to have serious consequences.’

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Sunday at Stamford Bridge is going to be tough for Eddie Howe and indeed, only three days later, Wednesday at St James’ Park is arguably going to be even tougher.

Eddie Howe has to balance relatively scarce resources, whilst Chelsea have the choice if they want to, of putting out an entirely fresh alternative/reserve team in the cup, that could have cost them £487m, or indeed even more than that.

It doesn’t make it impossible for Newcastle United to win one or indeed both of these matches against Chelsea. However, if anybody doesn’t accept that the odds are very much against Eddie Howe and Newcastle United in competing against this imbalance of finance and power, then I don’t know what else you would need to convince you.