But in the first week of 2020-21,
the strained relationship between
Kompany and Vercauteren came to
a head over coaching responsibilities.
The former won the boardroom battle
and ousted Vercauteren.
Thus begins Kompany-ball 2.0.
The youngest Anderlecht head coach
since1945 still brims with confidence
and incessantly articulates his football
philosophy, without any hint of
introspection. He doesn’t countenance
failure. This season, however, there
won’t be any mitigating circumstances
for him to invoke. He will be solely
responsible and subject to the same
scrutiny every coach faces in football’s
zero-sum environment.
Underwhelming, early-season draws
with Mouscron and Oostende were
perhaps the portent of another difficult
season for Anderlecht and Kompany.
In a thinly-manned Anderlecht squad,
teenage prodigies Yari Verschaeren
andJeremy Doku will be key for the
new coach to prove that he is more
than simply the latest Guardiola
copycat. Kompany’s honeymoon
then has truly come to an end.
Samindra Kunti
F
rank Lampard is
not the first Chelsea
manager of the Roman
Abramovich era to
begin a new season
with a selection
headache after a
big summer of transfer spending.
The £200 million that the Blues
spent this year is the biggest summer
outlay in their history, overtaking their
previous record of around £190m
that was spent in 2017.
Accounting for inflation, both
figures are dwarfed by the £222m
from 2003. Then, it was Claudio
Ranieri who had the conundrum of
accommodating a raft of new boys- Hernan Crespo, Damien Duff,Juan
Sebastian Veron, Claude Makelele,
Adrian Mutu, Wayne Bridge, Geremi,
Joe Cole – alongside established
performers, including Lampard himself.
This time it is Lampard’s turn to
juggle a boatload of talent, with the
arrivals of Kai Havertz, Timo Werner,
Ben Chilwell, Hakim Ziyech and Thiago
Silva. Three of them are among the
club’s top ten signings of all time.
The manager is overloaded with
options, and it is difficult to see how
they all fit in without holding back
some of the talent already at Lampard’s
disposal – Tammy Abraham, Callum
Hudson-Odoi, Mason Mount, et al.
Yet what is more difficult to see - particularly for fans of a certain
Premier League rival who were
recently admonished under UEFA’s
Financial Fair Play rules – is how
they can afford it. In a year when
incomes are significantly down across
football, how has Abramovich been
able to whip out his chequebook so
readily like it’s 2003 all over again?
Player sales in the last two years
have helped to significantly boost the
coffers. In addition to Eden Hazard’s
£89m move to Real Madrid – the
highest fee Chelsea have ever received- the Blues also completed the sale of
Alvaro Morata to Atletico Madrid this
summer for over £50m, while other
smaller fees add up to over £40m,
including Mario Pasalic joining Atalanta
for £13.5m inJuly, and defenders
Ola Aina, Tomas Kalas and David Luiz
leaving for around £8m each in 2019.
Player wages have decreased too,
thanks to the departures of Willian and
Pedro this summer, and ex-captain Gary
Cahill joining Crystal Palace last year.
Underpinning all these incomings
are the savings they made as a result
of last year’s transfer ban. The only
player they signed in the summer of
2019 was Mateo Kovacic, joining for
£40m after his year on loan.
In addition, UEFA have made
changes to the implementation of FFP.
Usually when assessing the validity
of club finances, the governing body
assess three years at a time. However,
in 2021, accounts for 2020 will be
excluded, and focus solely on 2018
and 2019 instead.
Effectively, Abramovich has
capitalised on the relaxing of the rules,
and taken the opportunity to steal a
march on Chelsea’s rivals in the transfer
market. In order for the gamble to pay
off, Lampard must deliver: failure to
qualify for the Champions League
cannot be afforded or tolerated. In
this season’s competition they have
to progress in order to achieve a
similar financial return as 2019-20,
when they earned an estimated
£72m for reaching the last16.
The FA Cup’s £3.6m prize pot
means that losing another final could
be forgiven, but the gap to Liverpool
and Manchester City must be closed
by the time this year’s finances are
factored into the 2022 FFP
assessments. A Premier League
trophy will go a long way towards
balancing the books.
Jamie Evans
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