Erik ten Hag left Manchester United 14th in one Premier League table and second in another. Had the Dutchman figured in the top two in the standings that mattered most, he would probably be overseeing Sunday’s game against Chelsea. Instead, a meeting of the 2008 Champions League finalists represents another summit clash.
Because, over the course of Ten Hag’s reign, United’s transfer outlay topped £600m. It put them behind only one club, albeit one who spent more than twice as much. With Chelsea’s £1.3bn expenditure, it means these squads should have been bolstered to the tune of almost £2bn in two-and-a-half years.
It is an understatement to say it has not all been well spent. It is also pertinent to note that there are times when Ten Hag wanted to spend even more: on a senior striker in the summer of 2023, on buys in two winter windows when his budget was severely limited. It is a subplot that some of Chelsea’s buying – or the facility to buy within PSR, anyway – came courtesy of United, paying them £55m for the homegrown Mason Mount.
There is unlikely to be a reunion with his former club for Mount, whose injury-interrupted United career has produced just seven league starts and a lone goal.
He has been luckless but Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali may see him as a poster boy for their policy of selling academy products. So far, the departure of Chelsea’s double player of the year has not come back to haunt them. Instead, thus far, Mount ranks on a lengthy list of Ten Hag’s bad buys. Top spot is sealed off: even in an era when Chelsea have spent unprecedented amounts, Antony ranks as, pound for pound, the worst signing in not just United’s history, but perhaps the Premier League’s. The £85m mediocrity is proof a price tag does not confer excellence on a player.
Meanwhile the signing of last season, and potentially of the decade, was a United supporter from Wythenshawe; that said, it reflects worse on Manchester City than United that Cole Palmer ended up at Stamford Bridge. Palmer feels a phenomenon, a transformative arrival who could spearhead a Chelsea revival, albeit after they inflicted expensive turmoil upon themselves.
Certainly, he can be used to justify Chelsea’s strategy of buying young, even if he could feel the accidental success, targeted only after Michael Olise stayed at Crystal Palace. There is a slightly facetious argument that, by the law of averages, Chelsea were bound to have a spectacular success: sign enough players and one had to come good.
But in Nicolas Jackson and Malo Gusto, there are others who were bought young and whose value has increased as they have delivered on the pitch. It offers the potential some of their loan army may end up in the same category.
They are nevertheless outnumbered by those who cost too much and achieved too little. With Mount, Antony and Leny Yoro injured, there is little doubt Chelsea will have the more expensive bench on Sunday.
In Christopher Nkunku, Mykhailo Mudryk and Enzo Fernandez, it could feature three flagship signings. That Fernandez, the £107m record-breaker and club captain, may no longer rank in the starting 11 shows a lack of planning: so too Nkunku, a seeming coup when bought. That Joao Felix has not even started a league game since his £42m return to Stamford Bridge seems further proof of Chelsea’s financial incontinence and addiction to accumulating wingers.
Where Enzo Maresca may be succeeding, and where Ruben Amorim has to, is in forging a formula involving some of the many players acquired. Ten Hag had far more sway in recruitment than Chelsea’s recent managers but with him gone, Amorim inherits a squad that, like Chelsea’s, cost a lot, has clear deficiencies but untapped potential. At both clubs, there are positions where, despite extraordinary outlay, they look in need of strengthening.
Part of Maresca’s initial decision-making was to marginalise some of Chelsea’s dozens of signings. If Amorim is not bequeathed quite so many players, the chances are that he will discard some of the misfits and mistakes of the Ten Hag years. United did not spend £600m to find themselves 14th, though Chelsea paid a similar sum in 2022-23 and came 12th. The numbers have not added up at either club. For now, though, Chelsea have more of a sight of a return on their spending, in the shape of Champions League football.