FOOTBALL LONDON
Between the 2014/15 Premier League season and the 2017/18 campaign Tottenham amassed 297 points. It was a total that Chelsea, despite winning the title on two occassions during that period, could only better by three.
Although for the entirety of those four years Chelsea were either on their way to winning the league or already reigning champions, they only bettered Spurs’ rolling total by one win. For a club that had only finished in the top four once until that point it was Mauricio Pochettino’s squad that earned immense praise.
The Argentine took the club from north London to four successive seasons in the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history. By contrast, Chelsea, who were competing further on in the table, only finished in the top four twice. Both those seasons were title wins – it was the epitome of boom or bust.
It is worth adding that whilst Tottenham were in two title races, a Champions League final and came out with no silverware, they probably shouldn’t have even done that. Across the same time period they spent £289.1m on new players, Chelsea splashed out on £559.6m worth of transfers.
Translating that into a quick and basic pounds-per-point number, Chelsea spent £1.86m per point during those four years (not including players already at the club). Tottenham under Pochettino spent nearly half that at £970,000. Factor in the sales over the period and Tottenham’s net transfer spend was just £32.6m. Chelsea’s was £83.3m.
As owners that want to create a sustainable and self-helping system, especially on the recruitment side, it’s easy to see why Todd Boehly and Co are so keen to make the 51-year-old the next man in the Stamford Bridge hot seat. One way Pochettino did that was by making the most of young players.
Most noticeably he turned Harry Kane from a relative unknown quantity into a world superstar. Dele Alli thrived under Pochettino having signed for just £5m and players such as Son Heung-Min excelled for a lowly cost at the time of less than £25m. Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen, Danny Rose, Moussa Dembele, Eric Dier and Christian Eriksen all went up a level under his coaching.
None more so than Kane though and the Englishman replaced the remarkable exploits of Gareth Bale in front of goal. Chelsea this season have struggled massively to get going in front of goal and have scored less than one per game in the league. In four matches under Frank Lampard, the only strike was a deflected effort from Conor Gallagher.
