MAURICIO Pochettino surely knew what he was signing up for when he became Chelsea manager. The issues suffered by the Blues during their dismal 2022/23 season were well documented. Even still, Pochettino might not have truly comprehend the scale of the task at Stamford Bridge. His Chelsea rebuild is off to a bad start.

One win in just six fixtures has left Chelsea slumped in the bottom half of the Premier League, just as they were last season. Sunday’s home defeat to Aston Villa came after a goalless draw against Bournemouth and another home loss to Nottingham Forest. Chelsea haven’t scored a goal in the league for 285 minutes.

This is set against the backdrop of unprecedented spending. Chelsea have won just five (out of 29) Premier League games in 2023. At the same time, they have spent £725 on new signings over two transfer windows, equating to an astonishing £145m per win. Never before has a club got so little value for money.

Pochettino is already coming under pressure, but he isn’t to blame for the mess at Chelsea. Instead, the finger must be pointed at Todd Boehly and the new owners at Stamford Bridge who have taken a club with an established winning culture and completely dismantled it. They are the ones to blame for Chelsea’s never-ending spiral.

Boehly clearly believed he could achieve success by simply throwing money at the problem. Over £1 billion has been spent since Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s takeover just over a year, but Chelsea have never been in a worse position than they are now. It has been a disaster-class in squad building.

Just last summer, Chelsea spent over £50m on Kalidou Koulibaly and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang only for both to depart 12 months later. £12m was spent on loaning Joao Felix for half a season only for the Portuguese attacker to return to his parent club in the summer. Mykhailo Mudryk, Marc Cucurella, Noni Madueke and Denis Zakaria were all signed for close to £150m without much thought on how they would fit into the team.

The scattergun approach to transfers continued this summer as no fewer than 24 players left Chelsea with 12 arriving in their place. There are airports that have had fewer arrivals and departures over the last year than Chelsea. It’s no wonder Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter, Frank Lampard and now Pochettino have all struggled with the level of turnover.

“We need to grow up like a team, not only in an individual way,” Pochettino said after the home defeat to Aston Villa, seemingly in a plea for patience. “I think players like Nico who are so young and feeling the Premier League, they need time. In this type of game, we are competing and want to win and football is about winning. But also players, when they are young, need to learn, and experience and make mistakes.”

Chelsea have targeted young players in the transfer market (see Nicolas Jackson, Malo Gusto, Cole Palmer, Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, Carney Chukwuemeka and Madueke among others), but now must allow that group to grow and mature together. Another managerial change would only further destabilise the situation.

This isn’t to say Pochettino should be immune from all criticism. It’s his job to give Chelsea an identity again and so far this season it has been difficult to make out his vision for the team. However, his struggles are only a symptom of everything that has happened at Chelsea under Boehly. If Pochettino was hired to clean up the mess, he must be given time to do so.