Chelsea transfer impatience with Boehly already grating as fans continue to cry over spilled milk

Todd Boehly has been at Chelsea for nearly three whole weeks and is yet to make a signing. What’s the f***ing hold up?

We’re barely a week into a 13-week window and people are already very cross about transfer inactivity. Gary Neville is pleading with Manchester United to get Erik ten Hag’s “group together asap”, Piers Morgan wanted Arsenal to ‘get the bloody cheque-book out’ hours before they announced the £34m signing of Fabio Vieira, then claimed they needed God not Jesus, and social media is awash with frustrated Chelsea fans, desperate for some Todd Boehly intent to ease their concerns in this post-Roman Abramovich era. Everyone needs to calm down.

todd boehly so far

– 20+ pr quotes
– lost bisouma/tchouameni
– lost perisic to spurs
– wants sterling as a statement signing
– delaying a bid for kounde, barca closing in on him
– other top 6 clubs made 1/2 signings already and 18 days in the window we have not even made bids

— ۪ (@notcalvacic) June 15, 2022

Boehly has officially been the owner of Chelsea for 18 days, before which Marina Granovskaia, Petr Cech and anyone else involved in transfers at Stamford Bridge were banned from negotiating contracts and opening talks with players and their representatives.

Whether they followed those guidelines to the letter is another matter, but even if they were holding informal discussions over potential future signings, they will have had no clear idea as to how much money they had to play with, whether the plan was to cut the wage bill, and which areas of Thomas Tuchel’s squad they would be able to improve under the new ownership during that time.

Transfers can sometimes appear to come from nowhere – Liverpool are particularly good at seemingly tying up deals in double-quick time. But in reality most of those ‘shock’ transfers will have taken significantly longer than we’ve been aware. The ‘genius’ of them is more in the lack of media leakage than their perceived speed.

Take Gabriel Jesus, for example. It would be fair to say Chelsea are a more alluring prospect than Arsenal. But reports suggest the Gunners have been working on persuading Jesus for the last six months, with their failure to qualify for the Champions League no more than a cause for some late jitters. Assuming Chelsea were genuinely interested in the Brazilian, they’ve had under three weeks of schmoozing time, during which they will have been working on a transfer strategy that their rivals, Manchester…