Empty victory for hollowed-out Chelsea in need of cultural reset

You can’t trust what you read nowadays. Enzo Fernández just really likes the Madrid weather, and the language, and playing in white, and doesn’t the Bernabéu look lovely in dappled April sunlight? Admittedly, calling his chihuahuas Roberto and Carlos is an unfortunate coincidence, but the legacy media will add one blatant come-and-get-me plea to another and suggest you might be interested in joining Real Madrid.

Fernández’s agent Javier Pastore – yes, that one – made the balanced decision immediately to hop on the blower to The Athletic, insisting that his client’s comments were “only natural for an Argentine to say” and that Liam Rosenior suspending him for two games was “completely unfair”.

Pastore then clarified that “our plan after the World Cup is to meet with Chelsea again and, if there is no agreement, to explore other options”, the exact intimation which got Fernández in trouble in the first place. Well done, lads, good process. Thank God he’s got someone older and wiser in his corner.

Somehow one of Chelsea’s most experienced players at 25, Fernández remains a bizarre phenomenon, a monument to the worst ­tenets of the Clearlake-Boehly regime. That he received no punishment for live-streaming himself allegedly being racist and transphobic, and has since repeatedly captained the club, has always exposed the disproportionate power that Chelsea’s contract structure and transfer policy conversely affords their young players.

We know that he was never worth £107m, perhaps the apex of Chelsea’s binge-spending era, even from the brains trust that paid £62m for Mykhailo Mudryk. Occasionally he looks like a £60m player, more often closer to £40m. His A Few Good Men-inspired leadership has reportedly alienated his team-mates. But of course, you have to admire his confidence to believe that, despite no suggestion that they are remotely interested, Real Madrid must be preparing a nine-figure bid as we speak. Commanding a league-record transfer fee at 22 will do that to you.

But while one wantaway player may be regarded as a misfortune, two is symptomatic of a deeper rot. Marc Cucurella said it would be “hard to turn down” an offer from Barcelona, another club who have shown no public interest in his services.

Cucurella also declared that he did not agree with sacking Enzo Maresca, and that his departure was destabilising. He also said “to fight for major trophies such as the Premier League or Champions League, you need more” than the current squad can provide.

These comments were followed by the announcement that Chelsea lost £262m pre-tax in 2024-25, £64.9m more than the previous record holder, Manchester City. Even if they avoided breaching profitability and sustainability rules, you have to raise ethical and functional issues over wasting so much money for such little progress.

And yet somewhere in here, the biggest Chelsea story of Big Chelsea Story Week has been somewhat buried. On Thursday, Rosenior appeared to back up reports that the club are open to signing players older than 25, saying that he wanted to “bring in players with emotional stability, good characters who, in difficult moments, can understand what it takes to win”.

This would end one of the ­greatest acts of institutional self-harm in recent footballing memory, an admission of gross failure years too late but nonetheless vital. Conscripting teenagers and denying them adequate guidance or leadership, while burdening them with extraordinary responsibility, has been the most obvious obstacle to progress and stability, based in a fundamental misunderstanding around how talent develops and people work.

What remains is a squad craving solid foundations, never having failed and learned how to overcome failure, not having lived for long enough to know when you’re doing it right. Cucurella also raised this issue, saying Chelsea “lacked players that had gone through situations like [the defeat by Paris Saint-Germain]”.

In this light it is easy to understand how Fernández has become such an ineffectual and abrasive leader. He has learned from a distance, stripped of suitable role models and fuelled only by the overwhelming force of his delusion. That Cole Palmer was named captain yesterday only emphasised the leadership void.

And so a 7-0 victory over Port Vale confirmed that a squad built for £1.5bn can make light work of the worst team in League One, even without Fernández, although a disproportionately strong line-up betrayed Rosenior’s fear of potential embarrassment. It turns out that Estêvão can outplay third-division left-backs and employing one of the world’s leading set-piece coaches might give you an edge from corners. Robert Sánchez looks totally assured when not having to face a shot on target. Fernández sat in the dugout and grinned his perfect grin, presumably dreaming of sunnier climes and replacing Jude Bellingham after 85 minutes.

But as was the case with the Conference League and Club World Cup, FA Cup success would temper the simmering fan discontent without healing any of the gaping fault lines still underpinning the chaos. Given the early portents of a player revolt, it is hard to point to anyone around the club truly confident that things are on the right track, that this is functional and sustainable. Progress will only come by finally overhauling the transfer policy and admitting that in attempting to move fast and break football, all they broke was themselves.

Photograph by Jacques Feeney/Offside via Getty Images