Richard Hughes and co. stealing Todd Boehly strategy in uninspired chase of Man Utd, Spurs target | OneFootball

We’re in no real position to tell sporting directors of elite Premier League clubs how best to conduct their transfer business, but we would ward against them taking a (the only) leaf out of Todd Boehly’s recruitment handbook.

“Finding those right elements, the first time at anything is tricky,” the Chelsea co-owner said in an interview earlier this year.

“So you’re going to make mistakes and obviously having taken over in the circumstances that we did, basically the whole management team left. I was stuck being interim sporting director for the summer having no idea what made a good football player.

“But knowing that Marc Cucurella, if Man City wants him, I want him. It was really simple that way.”

The American businessman, who had led the Boehly/Clearlake Capital takeover of Chelsea in May 2022 and with the club still reorganizing, temporarily took on the role of sporting director despite having no prior experience.

Cucurella – who’s just agreed a £52m transfer to Real Madrid – has ironically been one of Chelsea’s better signings under the new owners, now known as BlueCo, after joining in a window which also saw them sign disastrous quartet Wesley Fofana, Kalidou Koulibaly, Raheem Sterling and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

In fairness to Boehly – though not that much fairness as he hired them – Chelsea’s transfer record has barely improved since Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart became the co-sporting directors. And judging by the moves of their counterparts at the top end of the Premier League, as well as some of their own, Boehly’s methods weren’t out of the ordinary.

Reports suggest Chelsea are ‘close’ to reaching an ‘agreement’ with Adam Wharton over his £75m transfer, who’s been heavily linked with Liverpool and is also on Tottenham’s radar this summer, with Manchester United also keen.

We accept that very good footballers attract interest from the biggest clubs. That’s always been the case and will never change. Young midfielders of Wharton’s quality are hard to come by. But you could be forgiven for thinking there are just three such players available for the Premier League heavyweights to fight over.

Manchester City went early and have gone big to sign Elliot Anderson, pricing Manchester United and other potential suitors out of a move for the Nottingham Forest midfielder as owner Evangelos Marinakis continues to drive a very hard bargain.

The Red Devils then turned their attention to Mateus Fernandes, whom relegated West Ham want a whopping £85m for, before Tottenham and now Liverpool have thrown their hats in the ring for the 21-year-old.

They’re all very talented footballers, as is Sandro Tonali, an older player of a slightly different profile who’s at the centre of another Big Six transfer battle, between Tottenham and Manchester City; maybe Arsenal.

Guys, there are other midfielders. The multi-million pound scouting networks of these top clubs have always left plenty to be desired for those of us on the outside looking in, signing players a dad in his pants playing Football Manager might move for, if they were particularly bad at playing Football Manager.

And the transfer net seems to be getting narrower as narrower as Liverpool’s Richard Hughes, Tottenham’s Johan Lange, Manchester City’s Johan Lange and Arsenal’s Andrea Berta display what simply looks like a stunning lack of imagination in an increasingly risk-averse sporting director world in which they can caveat their bad signings by insisting other similarly uninspired recruitment chiefs also wanted to sign their flops.

Why not look beyond the obvious? Why not take a risk on signing a player that Brighton, Bournemouth or West Ham want rather than buying them a couple of years later for a mammoth mark-up?

Why not validate the millions of pounds they get paid each year by engaging in a transfer strategy beyond what Boehly settled upon after admitting he had “no idea what made a good football player”.