'Deemed to be a failure' - Graeme Souness slams Enzo Fernandez in brutal Chelsea message

Graeme Souness has suggested players with long contracts at Chelsea will be a waste in the long-term while claiming Enzo Fernandez will 'never reach the level' the club hopes for.

More than £1billion has been spent on new signings since Todd Boehly took over in 2022. The club have gone for young stars of the future on long contracts - an approach that has been criticised by many.

Since the start of the 2022/23 summer transfer window, Chelsea have signed 39 players - Joao Felix twice makes it 40 deals in total after Boehly and Clearlake took over. Not to mention that the Blues have had six coaches since Boehly took over, including Enzo Maresca.

As for players, the likes of Cole Palmer and Noni Madueke have proven to be the right signings while others haven't quite worked out. As a result, the club were forced to take big losses in the transfer market.

Fernandez meanwhile, cost Chelsea £105million - becoming the most expensive transfer in British football after swapping Lisbon's Benfica for London in January 2023. He currently finds himself behind Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia in Maresca's pecking order.

Speaking on the Three Up Front podcast, Souness said: "‘It’s still very early to pass any sort of judgement on Chelsea. With their current group of players, they have a chance of finishing in the top four, but they’re still some way off winning the Premier League or Champions League.

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"From the current squad, I think there’ll be an enormous wastage of players and a lot of them will never live up to the levels that people think they will. The most obvious one for me is someone who isn’t even in the team at the moment, Enzo Fernandez, on whom they spent £105million. They’ve bought a load of players who won’t reach the level they would’ve hoped.

"I think there was a different way they could’ve done it. They just went out with a scattergun approach, buying everyone and anyone of a certain age that popped up. They’re just storing up more problems for themselves further down the line. The case in point would be Raheem Sterling, who they’ve basically had to give away.

Souness continued: "They’re going to be confronted with that same situation at least another half-a-dozen times. Players will not live up to the expectation, become surplus to requirements, be sat on seven-year contracts and not want to leave Chelsea unless they get offered a big golden handshake to walk out the door.

"Chelsea will get no value for them when they sell them because they’re deemed to be a failure, and they’ll have to pay them to leave. That’s not a sustainable business model."