Chelsea are not likely to be a club where Manchester United go for footballing lessons usually but extreme circumstances warrant extreme measures.
While Ineos have done a good job bringing newfound ruthlessness to Manchester United after years of Glazers “protecting the book value” of the players, there remains a problem.
Man Utd’s soft touch in dealing with the outcasts is already coming back to haunt them and to solve, they only need to look at their Premier League rivals.
Chelsea’s “bomb squad” last summer received plenty of criticism but for Man Utd, it might have taught them a valuable lesson they need to apply this summer.
Romelu Lukaku and Jorginho of Chelsea during a training session at Chelsea Training Ground
Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images
Chelsea’s “bomb squad” in 2024
There is no point trying to decipher Chelsea’s transfer strategy and their PSR shenanigans because even the club’s fans have a hard time grasping it.
What was clear last summer, however, is how the expendable players were dealt with.
Chelsea were in a similar boat to Man Utd last summer when their summer spending left many players, some of whom had joined recently, out of favour.
Combine that with those players being on high wages, and it became impossible to shift them if they didn’t take a step forward from their side as well.
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What eventually happened is that Chelsea completely froze them out, preventing them from training with the first team, not taking them for pre-season, and the manager brutally and publicly asking them to find a new club.
While everyone thought that strategy would backfire, seeing such extreme steps taken by the club alerted players that the club was not messing about.
Before the end of the window, many moved by either reducing their wage demands or on a loan but on Chelsea’s terms.
Raheem Sterling, Romelu Lukaku, Connor Gallagher, and Joao Felix were some of the players who joined new clubs after being frozen out.
That’s where the lesson lies for Man Utd.
Man Utd’s soft touch and need for “bomb squad” in 2025
Much like Chelsea last year, United faced a choice as well, albeit at a much smaller scale. For example, Jadon Sancho had returned from his Dortmund loan in an awkward reunion with Erik ten Hag.
It was clear that the union was uneasy and yet, instead of making it clear, United tried the soft touch approach and Sancho played pre-season under Ten Hag.
It didn’t fool anyone, and Sancho’s loan was dragged to the deadline day where Chelsea negotiated a deal that has left United looking foolish this summer.
Again, Sancho is refusing to take a pay cut, and neither is Marcus Rashford, hence their return from loans.
United can’t repeat the mistake they made last summer because they’ve already seen that the soft touch counts for nothing.
Chelsea’s approach of making a bomb squad is the way to go. If some players are happy to sit and collect a paycheck, the club needs to call them out on their bluff and have them do exactly that.
United aren’t saving much money on loans with no option to buy and low salary coverage. They might as well use these players to send a message and draw a line in the sand.
Bomb squad at Chelsea was not popular but at Man Utd, it’s necessary.