OLIVER HOLT: BlueCo's arrogant Chelsea 'project' is fatally flawed, startlingly naïve and failing miserably. They claim to be building one of the best teams in the world... but they are just creating football's equivalent of a madhouse

There are an awful lot of blowhards in the vanguard of the BlueCo project that is turning Chelsea Football Club into a playground for its toxic experiment in melding arrogance with startling naivety.

There are an awful lot of men in positions of power at the club whose comportment suggests they think they are the smartest person in the room. They can’t all be right. The problem at Chelsea is that none of them are right.

At Stamford Bridge, the brains have left the building. The only one I’d put my faith in is Liam Rosenior , both because of his character and his coaching ability, but the BlueCo boys have turned what used to be the manager’s role at Chelsea into the impossible job.

It’s a job where the coach is subservient to an army of sporting directors who hold power without responsibility. It’s a job that BlueCo scorns because they think any fool who looks at running statistics on a computer screen can do it just as well.

Last week, one of the club’s directors attended a meeting with a group of disaffected fans – most Chelsea fans are disaffected these days, and it’s hard to blame them – and told them statistics suggested that the manager/coach’s role was relatively unimportant. The director was reported to have told protest group ‘notaprojectcfc’ that it was ‘f****** obvious’ BlueCo were building one of the best teams in the world.

Well, I hate to be a dissenting voice, but it’s not obvious to me. It is obvious that BlueCo have spent more money than any other club in trying to assemble one of the best teams in the world. It’s also obvious that they are failing and failing rather miserably.

Todd Boehly, one of Chelsea's co-owners looks frustrated during the Champions League defeat to PSG but he is partly responsible for creating a madhouse not a functioning football club

Enzo Fernandez (right) appears to have embarked on an exit strategy at Chelsea, no matter that he is on a long contract

The last time I looked, Chelsea were sitting in sixth place in the Premier League, 22 points behind leaders Arsenal. They lost 3-0 at Everton on Saturday. They are not on an upwards trajectory. They are starting to fall. Last week, they completed away and home defeats to PSG in the Champions League Round of 16. They lost 8-2 on aggregate. To claim, against that backdrop, that you are building the best team in the world is howling at the moon.

One of the best teams in the world? Come on. It is not just that Chelsea are not competing to win the Champions League this season. At this rate, they won’t even qualify to take part in it next season. BlueCo aren’t building something at Chelsea. They’re tearing it down, brick by brick.

I spoke with an influential figure at a leading Premier League club recently who confessed to liking Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly. He said he admired his attempt at fiscal innovation by signing players on outlandishly long contracts to get round some of the PSR restrictions. But he also admitted what most of the rest of us suspected immediately: signing players on long contracts might work in a culture like the NFL but it is flawed in European football because we have allowed a system to flourish here where the players hold all the power.

The director who met the protest group was reported to have told them that the BlueCo model will work because the current tranche of players will mature into a team capable of winning major honours. I’m sure it looks sweet on a spreadsheet. I’m sure it looks great when you feed it into statistical modelling. But spreadsheets don’t factor in ambition and discontent. They don’t factor in greed and ingratitude. It’s a nice idea but it is startlingly naïve.

There are conflicting suggestions about whether the contract of Enzo Fernandez, for instance, ends in 2032 or 2033. It doesn’t matter. It could end in 2060 but if he’s still at Chelsea next season, I’d be surprised. We all know how these things go. A couple of weeks ago, Fernandez said he wasn’t sure whether he’d be at Chelsea after this summer. He’d take a look at it after the World Cup, he said.

Then, excerpts from an interview with another TV station emerged when he said he was dismayed that Enzo Maresca was fired as Chelsea coach earlier this season. It is starting to look very much like the forming of an exit strategy.

Cole Palmer, Chelsea’s best player, also has a long contract. But he could be on a deal that ties him to Chelsea until he’s 50 and it wouldn’t make any difference. There are suggestions that he, too, wants to escape the chaos on the King’s Road. He has said nothing to that effect but he thought he was signing for a football club, not a trading house.

Building the best team in the world? Have you had a look at Wesley Fofana recently? Have you had a look at Alejandro Garnacho? The reality is Chelsea haven’t got a goalkeeper, a defender or a forward that is going to get them in the Premier League’s top three.

Gianni Infantino, FIFA president, USA President Donald Trump and Boehly share a joke as Chelsea captain Reece James picks up his medal after winning the FIFA Club World Cup

The BlueCo model of Behdad Eghbali (left) and Boehly is predicated on buying young and selling for a profit. What they cannot see is that that model might yield trading dividends but it is not built for success on the pitch

Fernandez is the closest thing they’ve got to a leader, if you count a bloke who sings racist songs about France players as the kind of role model you want the rest of your team to look up to.

But the BlueCo model is predicated on financial success, on buying young and selling for a profit. And what they cannot see is that that model might yield trading dividends but it is not built for success on the pitch.

Chelsea have a lot of young, talented players but every great side needs a few stars who have been around the block, too. Every great side needs experience and leadership and Chelsea have very, very little of either.

BlueCo thinks leadership is a man who calls himself a ‘cultural architect’ indulging a pathetic gimmick like crowding round the centre circle for a pre-match huddle. Before their home game with Newcastle, they insisted on doing it even though referee Paul Tierney was standing on the centre spot. That worked well.

Its only effect was that it cost Rosenior more effort and more goodwill to put out a fire that he had not started. BlueCo will probably make him the fall-guy at some point because that’s what projects do. The five sporting directors and the cultural architect, presumably, will continue undisturbed.

The only thing the masters of dysfunction that own Chelsea are building in west London is football’s equivalent of a madhouse.

Howe should look at the bigger picture before moaning about cash

I admire Eddie Howe for the job he has done at Newcastle. I still think he’s the best thing that has happened to the club for 20 years.

Being knocked out of the Champions League by Barcelona and losing at home to Sunderland at the weekend hasn’t changed that view. But blaming the club’s position on the restrictions imposed by PSR is unwise.

Eddie Howe looks dejected during the defeat to Sunderland at the weekend

For a start, other clubs, with lesser resources than Newcastle, are doing considerably better. More to the point, moaning about money when you are the front man for a fabulously wealthy nation state that has an appalling human rights record, cuts journalists up with bonesaws, treats women as second-class citizens and imposes long prison sentences on those who offer even mild dissent, is not a particularly good look.

Maybe Howe should tell the Saudis who own Newcastle it’s about time they started showing some interest in running the club properly. Or maybe he may decide that the precedents for that kind of disobedience are not particularly promising.