Chelsea files: Clock ticking on £795m off-field issue, Caicedo’s huge void and Lacroix’s hidden talent revealed

CHELSEA are good to watch, win or lose, so far this season..

The owners will hope the football continues to distract most fans from the intrigue off the field.

Because Blues bosses have a big few months coming up when it comes to settling how the club will be run and funded going forward.

Private equity, leveraged buyouts and the global finance world in general are tough to understand.

High-rollers such as Chelsea chiefs Behdad Eghbali, Todd Boehly and Mark Walter like it that way. The less the little people understand, the better – although bloggers like Paul Quinn (@theesk on X) do their best to help us unravel it all.

But the ongoing uncertainty about the future ownership of the club, and how that ownership will refinance their massive debts, will be an important sub-plot to whatever Xabi Alonso and his team achieve this season.

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The long and the short of it is: the two sides have different visions and neither wants to put in or borrow massive sums of money for a project over which they do not have full say.

Boehly will hand over his chairmanship to Clearlake control at the end of the season but retain a veto over major decisions.

And there is another deadline which should focus everyone’s minds.

Next July, the debt facility which Chelsea’s owners have with JP Morgan and HSBC will expire.

According to the latest figures for holding company BlueCo 22 Limited, the total debt stands at just under £795m.

In July, whoever owns the club will have to renegotiate the terms with the same group of lenders or someone new.

Blues bosses will have a certain amount of confidence they will be able to strike a good deal. The recent sale of 30 per cent of Liverpool for £1.65billion, valuing the Reds at £5.5billion, ss Premier howsLeague football clubs remain an attractive investment.

But financial institutions don’t like uncertainty. They would prefer clarity about who will own Chelsea going forward and what investigations, if any, are outstanding, before sanctioning large loans to a loss-making business.

BlueCo 22 has an outstanding loan of £2billion to Chelsea Football Club Ltd, the company for whom Alonso and his players actually work.

There is no prospect of the owners calling that in and sending the Blues into financial meltdown.

But off-field issues need to be addressed and the clock is ticking.

CAICEDO SHAPED HOLE

THERE was a Moises Caicedo-shaped hole in Chelsea’s midfield against Arsenal.

Blues boss Xabi Alonso did not want to dwell too much on absent players like Caicedo and Levi Colwill.

But the stats prove just how important Caicedo is to his club.

And how much better they are when he and Colwill are fit enough to start games.

Since Caicedo joined Chelsea after the first game of the 2023/4 season, the Blues have played 116 Premier League games and accrued 189 points.

That’s an average of 1.63 points per game. Caicedo has started 103 of those matches, and on those occasions, the team’s PPG is slightly higher, at 1.66.

But what is more telling is the drop-off when the Ecuador international is absent.

It is admittedly a small sample of games – he has failed to start only 13 games in three and a bit seasons.

Yet it feels significant Chelsea’s PPG falls to 1.38 without him. Their win percentage falls from 47.5 with him to 38.5 per cent without.

The average goals scored per game average also drops, from 1.76 to 1.62. But most notably, without Caicedo there to screen the Blues’ backline, they concede 1.69 goals per game, compared to 1.38 when he starts.

The inability to control games, even when in the lead, was obvious in the wins over Fulham and Brighton.

Five- and seven-goal thrillers are great for the neutral, but not for Alonso in the cold light of day.

But it was against Arsenal that Caicedo was really missed, and not just because of the result.

In the first half, Reece James and Romeo Lavia did pretty well.

After the break, however, they were overrun. It was James who failed to track Martin Odegaard for what turned out to be the winning goal. It happens.

What was more alarming was how dominant Arsenal became. A third goal looked inevitable. Alonso saw it, and sent on Malo Gusto for Lavia to give his midfield a bit more energy.

Gusto and fellow sub Pep Chavarria steadied the ship enough for Chelsea not to concede again – but not enough for them to threaten an equaliser until Gunners goalkeeper David Raya stopped Estevao from notching a worldie equaliser.

The fact is Chelsea cannot compete with the best teams without the 90-minute, all-action displays Caicedo delivers.

A quick word on Colwill.

Enzo Maresca was downbeat from the start of the last campaign after Colwill suffered an ACL injury in the first pre-season training session and Blues bosses declined his appeal for a replacement.

Colwill’s defensive skills and his ability to pass the ball quickly and accurately through the lines were badly missed. As was his leadership.

Like Caicedo, Colwill boosts Chelsea’s PL points per game slightly, to 1.66, when he starts.

But underlying that is this statistic: when the centre back is in the first 11, the Blues concede just 1.22 goals per game. Without him, it is 1.60.

Many people are understandably frustrated by football becoming a numbers game, a science rather than an art.

So just one or two more.

When Colwill and Caicedo both start matches, Chelsea’s win percentage is over 50 per cent. When neither does it is 37.5 per cent. The points per game falls from 1.8 to 1.4. All the stats are significantly better.

Caicedo makes the bigger individual difference. But with both players in the spine, the Blues are a much better team.

“EVERYBODY LOST”

FORMER Chelsea midfielder Gus Poyet knows what it’s like to leave Stamford Bridge, and he thinks “everybody lost” when it comes to Fernandez joining Manchester City.

The Uruguayan spoke exclusively to SunSport on behalf of Gambling.com, and claimed it was one thing wanting to join Real Madrid, but another to move to Manchester…

He said: “I think there was something to it that we don’t know, I think Enzo was unhappy. It’s one thing when you have a dream to go to Madrid or Munich and you can’t go, then you stay, but it looked to me like he wanted to leave. I didn’t see him happy from the outside.

“Then you have the club and the coach- the coach wants it sorted as soon as possible, and the club want to wait to get a bit more money, and in the end no one wins. Chelsea are left without a midfielder, and Man City paid more money, so everybody lost.

“You could say that Man City won, they got Enzo, but we’ll see.

“When Chelsea signed Caicedo and Fernandez there was so much pressure on them, now Man City are in that spot with two £100m+ midfielders – you could say they have the best midfield in the country, but do they?”

BALLON D’OR BLUE (KIND OF)

CHELSEA have had a long-standing goalkeeper problem under their American owners.

The £7.5million deal to sign Emiliano Martinez, the club hope, will be the end of that. The early signs are good. Martinez, 34, has become the first Blues goalkeeper under the BlueCo ownership to be nominated for the Ballon d’Or’s Yashin Award.

Created in 2019, the award, which Martinez won twice while at Aston Villa, recognises the best goalkeeper in the world each year.

Chelsea’s last nominees, from 2019-22 were Kepa Arrizabalaga and then two nominations for Edouard Mendy, who is nominated again this year.

While Martinez’s nomination is, of course, for his performances with Villa and Argentina before making his late summer switch to Stamford Bridge, it is at least recognition that the club now have someone with pedigree between the sticks.

Martinez is the only keeper on the shortlist who could become the first to win the award three times, with Manchester City’s Gianluigi Donnarumma – the only other stopper with two – left off the list.

RE-OLISE

CHELSEA released another Olise this summer.

Years after Michael Olise, now one of the world’s leading wingers at Bayern Munich, left the Blues academy, his younger brother Richard, 22, departed this summer.

Unfortunately for the younger Olise, the former Chelsea full-back is still searching for a club since his Cobham exit.

However, chances may open up for free agents now the transfer window has closed.

There does not seem to be any big advice or ideas coming from his brother in Bavaria, however, given the two do not discuss their careers much.

Speaking to Highsnobiety earlier this summer, Michael said: “We never talk about football to be honest.

“We are both in it so much. We talk about life. When you have a setback, take it as a lesson. Use it as time to grow. Someone always has something worse than what you are experiencing.

“There is no time to complain. Digest what happened, then move on.”

A LACROI-SSANT WITH THAT?

MAXENCE LACROIX has slotted in pretty well at the back for Chelsea since his £52million move from Crystal Palace.

The France international quickly won over teammates in south London with his personality and leadership.

And Lacroix has now been showing off his barista skills to some of his new Blues teammates.