Former Manchester United defender Gary Neville has described the signings of Marc Cucurella and Enzo Fernandez at Chelsea as two “strange transfers”.
Chelsea have spent a bit under £600m on new players since new owner Todd Boehly took over last year, while they also fired Thomas Tuchel as the club undergoes big changes.
Despite parting with all that money it still feels Chelsea have areas of their side which need improvement, especially up front with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang recently left out of their Champions League squad.
And Neville has described Chelsea spending anything above £60m on Cucurella and Fernandez as “mad” after the pair were bought for a combined £171m.
“To me, Todd Boehly smacks of Ed Woodward when he first came to Manchester United and wanted to sign everyone,” Neville said on Sky Bet’s The Overlap. “It felt like that at Chelsea in the summer and it was chaotic.
“Marc Cucurella for £64m and Enzo Fernandez for £107m – that’s a full-back and a midfielder who will sit at the base of a three.
“The ceiling on those types of players – like Rodri, Fabinho, Casemiro – they are £50-60m positions.
“These aren’t players that are playing in the forward part of the pitch and scoring you 30 goals, so what they’re paying for the positions, what they’re getting for the money, they just seem like strange transfers.
“I’m not saying the players are no good. They could be really good and could go on to be great. But the fees for players in those positions seem mad to me.”
Chelsea are currently ninth in the Premier League under Graham Potter and fellow pundit Jamie Carragher also gave his view on the Blues’ spending.
Carragher added: “Spending this money hasn’t made Chelsea better yet, just look at where they are in the league. Spending money doesn’t guarantee success.
“Manchester City have spent an awful lot of money but have had great expertise with different managers.
“Manchester United is a great example of this from the other side of it – you look at their spending over the last ten years, there’s not much of a difference between themselves and Man City.
“With Chelsea, from Graham Potter’s point of view he must be thinking: ‘what is going on here?’
“You can dress it up like he’s delighted with a big squad and having all these great players coming in, but he’ll be worried for this job.”
READ MORE: Newcastle United top and West Ham bottom of Premier League table of improvers
