Why Morgan Rogers and Maxence Lacroix are taking a big risk
Four years. Almost £2bn spent on players. Six permanent managers. Three failures to reach the Champions League. Domestic trophies won? Zero.
Those are the headline figures of BlueCo’s chaotic ownership of Chelsea since their takeover in May 2022.
It is hardly surprising that countless big-money signings have fallen short of their potential at a club lacking direction on and off the pitch. Morgan Rogers and Maxence Lacroix are the latest in a long line of stars to join Chelsea for huge fees – but with their stock higher than ever, it’s a risk that neither player had to take.
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The club where numbers have lost all meaning
We’ve become so used to Chelsea’s eye-watering spending under BlueCo that the numbers have almost lost all meaning.
This is the club that spent a scarcely believable £747m on players during the 2022/23 season, when they famously couldn’t fit the entire squad in one dressing room.
It is why the British-record fee of £117m they paid Aston Villa for Rogers barely raised an eyebrow, although that may have something to do with Manchester City spending £116m on Elliot Anderson that same week.
Chelsea’s expenditure under BlueCo has dwarfed that of every other Premier League club during the same period, but the lack of return on their investment makes for grim reading.
The Blues last won a major domestic trophy back in 2018, while they have failed to achieve their ‘minimum’ objective of Champions League qualification in three of the four seasons under BlueCo. That included finishes of 12th in 2022/23 – yes, the campaign in which they spent £747m – and 10th last term.
Chelsea did win the Conference League and the Club World Cup in 2025, but they were the biggest club by a mile in the former competition and the latter was a unique tournament that is very different to a domestic season.
It is not hard to see why the Blues have performed so poorly. Their approach to hiring coaches has been inconsistent, from big personalities who fell out with the hierarchy (Enzo Maresca, Thomas Tuchel and Mauricio Pochettino) to coaches who were swallowed up by a job that was arguably too big for them (Graham Potter and Liam Rosenior).
The absence of joined-up thinking has also been evident in their on-pitch recruitment. Under BlueCo, Chelsea have stockpiled players with seemingly no clear plan on how to use them. Rogers is the latest star to join for a huge fee without it being obvious why that outlay is necessary.
The England international prefers to play as a No.10, but that is Cole Palmer’s favoured position. He can also operate on either wing (although why would you spend £117m on someone and play them out of position?), but Chelsea already have plenty of options there, including Pedro Neto, Jamie Gittens and Estevao Willian.
Countless players have faced the same scenario following big-money moves to Stamford Bridge, with a growing list of predominantly young footballers seeing their careers stall due to a lack of minutes in a bloated squad and a high turnover of managers.
Mykhailo Mudryk is the poster boy for the BlueCo ‘model’. The Ukraine winger signed in January 2023 for a fee rising to £89m, but made minimal impact and has not played since November 2024 after failing a drugs test. Chelsea continue to pay the 25-year-old, who still has five years left on his contract.
Christopher Nkunku, Joao Felix, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Alejandro Garnacho arrived for a combined £170m, but all struggled for game-time and left within two years.
Gittens joined for £48.5m from Borussia Dortmund just 13 months ago, yet Xabi Alonso is his fourth manager in that time. The England Under 21 winger has not featured since January due to injury but how many minutes will he play with both Rogers and Palmer expecting to be automatic starters, not to mention Neto and Estevao?
This is the club that Rogers and Lacroix are walking into. Even if they are regular starters and thrive, the knock-on effect is that another big-money signing will be out of favour and potentially unhappy, particularly with the absence of European football reducing opportunities to impress.
At 26 years old, Lacroix will expect to be Alonso’s first-choice centre back following his £52m move from Crystal Palace. That would leave Levi Colwill, Tosin Adarabioyo, Trevoh Chalobah, Mamadou Sarr, Benoit Badiashile and Wesley Fofana – who, at £70m, is another big-money signing that hasn’t kicked on at Chelsea – fighting for one starting place. Equally, Lacroix could fall out of favour and find it harder to get back into the team than he may have done elsewhere.
Rogers and Lacroix will have been in demand after an excellent season, with both players winning European trophies, starring in the Premier League and playing at their first World Cup. At 24 and 26 respectively, they are approaching their peak years, so why do they think the best place to spend them is a club where so many big-money signings have plateaued?
It must be said that Chelsea appear to have tweaked their recruitment policy this summer, with Rogers and Lacroix among a list of targets who are more ‘proven’ than many of BlueCo’s previous signings. Maybe the owners have learnt from their mistakes.
However, if the Blues are in danger of missing out on the Champions League as the season progresses, you would be a brave person to bet against them sacking Alonso, which would create further instability.
This summer could signal a fresh start for Chelsea, but after four years of chaos it must be seen to be believed – and that is why Rogers and Lacroix are taking a big gamble.
