The ‘Chelsea owners could have bought West Ham‘ says Kaveh Solhekol after their unprecedented display of spending power.
If there were two Premier League clubs who were polar opposites on deadline day – or indeed for most of the January window – then West Ham and Chelsea wouldn’t be far off.
The Hammers and the Blues may be on opposite sides of London but they are very much at the opposite ends of the spending table too right now.
Mind you West Ham are not alone, most clubs’ transfer business pales into insignificance compared to the kind of money Chelsea have splashed out under their new ownership led by Todd Boehly.
West Ham were only able to sign Danny Ings from Aston Villa for £15m in January as they battle to stave off relegation.
It is safe to say Chelsea dominated the winter window much like they did the summer one, outspending all comers.
The cherry on the cake for Boehly and Chelsea was of course the British record transfer of Enzo Fernandez from Benfica for a reported £106.8m.
As West Ham fans tuned into Sky Sports’ coverage of deadline day more in futile hope than expectation, Chelsea fans were quite the reverse.
Sky Sports were trying to make sense of Chelsea’s £323m January spend – which took them past the £600m mark since Boehly took over at Stamford Bridge.
And it led to a rather depressing but amusing point raised by one of Sky Sports’ key transfer reporters.
The ‘Chelsea owners could have bought West Ham’ says Solhekol after their unprecedented display of spending power.
‘Chelsea owners could have bought West Ham’ says Kaveh Solhekol after unprecedented display of spending power
Speaking on Sky Sports’ deadline day coverage at 10.11pm, Solhekol pointed out that the total mammoth spend on players was enough to buy West Ham.
The Hammers were valued at over £600m by virtue of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s £150m purchase of a 27 per cent stake in West Ham in November 2021.
That means Boehly and the Chelsea owners could have afford to buy an entire club the size of West Ham for the money they have spent.
“I mean I don’t know where to start about how much money Chelsea have spent,” Solhekol said on Sky Sports at 10.11pm on deadline day.
“People will not believe this. Chelsea have spent more money on transfers than all of the other clubs in the major European leagues put together. I’m talking Germany, Spain, Italy, France – all those clubs combined, Chelsea have spent more than them.
“Chelsea since the new American owners have come in, have spent £600m on players – £600m! You could have gone out and bought yourself another Premier League club – you could have bought West Ham for £600m.
“They’ve gone out and bought 16/17 players I think it is and some people would say they didn’t even need to sign all these players. Because when the Americans bought the club they were the reigning Club World Champions – they still are. They want to turbo-charge Chelsea. They want to make Chelsea not just the biggest club in the world but the biggest club group in the world because they want to own clubs all around the world as well. They want to make Chelsea bigger than Real Madrid, bigger than the City Football Group.
“They want to make sure that the £2.5bn investment they’ve made is worth (as much as) £10bn. And they think the best way to do it is to go out and buy the best young players in the world.”
What’s more maddening for West Ham fans – Boehly and the American consortium were linked with a Hammers takeover in the last couple of years.