The reason Chelsea have signed budget players this summer – and the reason there could be a superstar to come

07/08/2024 11:30 AM

Chelsea's failure to qualify for the Champions League or even the Europa League is having major effects on our short and long term plans already. That's something we had assumed already, but it's made painfully clear by our writer Simon Phillips on his Substack today.

He writes that all of our spending this summer has been conditioned by the fact we only made it into the Europa Conference League rather than either of the two higher team competitions.

Phillips says that the "smart", aka budget signings made so far are a result of that. From free agent Tosin Adarabioyo to affordable Championship midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to total unknown Renato Veiga and release clause bought Marc Guiu, our moves so far do have the smell of a Conference League team.

If we had performed just that little bit better and made it into the top 4, perhaps things would be different. Perhaps we would be looking at a very different tier of player. "Losing out on European football (the top competitions) has seen us be even more cautious, for sure. That is factual according to sources," Phillips reports.

There is still hope for the future

But there's still hope. Phillips points out that we went hard for Michael Olise, despite not making the top 4. So there clearly is still budget for us to go after top player should we want to.

He also suggests that sticking to a tight budget with our signings in defence and midfield should mean that that Olise money is still available for a top striker or right winger should we find one out there. So we can keep our fingers crossed that there's at least one more really exciting big deal to come in the pipeline this summer.

There's plenty of time to go…