Picking the Transfer Window That Chelsea Fans Would Love to Reboot
There hasn't been another season quite like 2004/05 for Chelsea. Ever since then, we have seen the Blues lift every major honour in European club football to become England's pre-eminent side in a 10-year period.
Chelsea have done league-and-cup doubles, broken goalscoring records, made the new Wembley Stadium feel like a second home and become European champions.
And yet, without the arrival of Jose Mourinho as manager in 2004, we can argue that none of it would have been possible. With Roman Abramovich's vast fortune and the Portuguese's managerial nous, Chelsea fans found themselves in the eye of a perfect storm in that summer.
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In just a few months, the club's direction would shift dramatically to breed a winning juggernaut. With so much uncertainty surrounding Chelsea in the present, that transfer window is one that supporters will cast their minds back to and wish they could reboot, were they given the choice.
Splashing the cash
In today's money, the £90 million Mourinho splashed out on new talent 13 years ago feels like short change. For the level of player Chelsea brought in that year, the club are looking at that same figure for just one player now at a time when they're desperately trying to rebuild for the future.
That's what 2004 was all about back then, and Chelsea's spending outstripped that of anyone else.
Abramovich had just completed his first season as Blues owner, and former manager Claudio Ranieri had been sacked after failing to deliver a trophy on the back of spending £130 million in the previous campaign. The Russian craved instant success.
It seemed too much to ask for, though, as Chelsea's ambition was at odds with itself. Chief executive Peter Kenyon was preaching multiple doctrines: one focused on rapidly making the club part of the elite, and the other putting building blocks in place to sustain it.
That rarely goes hand in hand, if ever. Yet the arrival of Mourinho somehow made it all happen.
The Special One enters
We know how Mourinho introduced himself to the Premier League. He was the "Special One" and he was going to prove it. And the way he would do so was by shocking the system and installing a sense of character and belief that would serve Chelsea well beyond his time.
In came Petr Cech and Arjen Robben for a combined £19 million—players Mourinho had inherited from the last cheques Ranieri had signed as manager. The former FC Porto boss would add Paulo Ferreira, Mateja Kezman, Tiago, Ricardo Carvalho and Didier Drogba to bring the spending up to just shy of the £90 million mark.
Cech, Robben, Carvalho and Drogba—Ferreira at a push—can count themselves as legends in west London. Yet, when they signed, they weren't regarded as the stars of the day. Chelsea were finding themselves linked with players on a whole different level, those such as Fabio Cannavaro and Andriy Shevchenko to name but two.
Abramovich's wealth dictated that Chelsea should be buying Europe's most coveted names. Mourinho's approach was different, as he sought substance over style to find value in the market and his team.
| From | Fee | |
| Petr Cech | Rennes | £7M |
| Arjen Robben | PSV Eindhoven | £12M |
| Paulo Ferreira | Porto | £13.2M |
| Ricardo Carvalho | Porto | £19.8M |
| Mateja Kezman | PSV Eindhoven | £5M |
| Tiago | Benfica | £8M |
| Didier Drogba | Marseille | £24M |
| Total | £89M |
Through bringing in players who had yet to peak, there was a method to how Mourinho was conducting himself. With enough talent to bring the immediate rewards Abramovich demanded, the Portuguese's side would grow together to be more than a flash in the pan.
Drogba was the finest example of that. The Ivorian frontman would deliver at key moments in a Chelsea shirt, yet his Stamford Bridge career took time to warm up. His status in west London was slow-cooked over a period of seasons until he would become Europe's deadliest striker.
It proved the same for players such as Carvalho and for those already at Chelsea when Mourinho arrived. Under his guidance, John Terry and Frank Lampard were taken to places they never thought possible.
And that is what the summer of 2004 was all about. Chelsea weren't just signing players and breeding excitement defined by the amount of money they were spending. There was so much more going on at the club.
A new superpower
There was revolution in the air, and Chelsea fans felt as though they could grasp it.
The signings the club made were symbolic of it, yet so much else was changing beyond the noise. It was a summer when the battle lines had been drawn. Chelsea were on one side; the rest of the Premier League were on the other.
The Blues had never been more powerful before or since.
Had it not been for their own shortcomings, Chelsea would have gone on to dominate the Premier League for much longer than the two seasons they did. The money polluted minds as much as the egos of those spending it, which allowed for Manchester United to eventually recover ground.
Still, for all the politics that clouded judgement, Chelsea would still go on to win silverware with a generation of players who will rank as the club's finest for quite a while. That it was all stop-start along the way wasn't the point; until Mourinho's arrival in 2004, Chelsea were missing the swagger of winners.
Money doesn't buy that (well, in a roundabout way, it does, given that Abramovich's riches are what attracted Mourinho from Porto in the first place. But in terms of assembling talent, it's a different factor). Chelsea are a testament to that given their own shortcomings during the Russian's reign, with failed managerial appointments and record transfers along the way.
Back to the future
Despite heading into this summer as Premier League champions, Chelsea find themselves back to where they were in 2004. It's Year Zero almost for the next generation, and so much is riding on how the club conducts itself—not just in the transfer market but internally.
Mourinho was the inspiration back then, and Antonio Conte is now. The club is about him in the present, especially after he produced a minor miracle in transforming a failing side that had finished 10th in the season ahead of his arrival into champions.
The problems he inherited still remain, however. There's a lack of depth in key areas, and we're still unconvinced by what direction Chelsea are taking. The future will pivot on this moment, but unlike the landscape of over a decade ago, Abramovich isn't the only big fish these days.
The rules have changed in 2017. Chelsea can't outmuscle their rivals by hiking up their bids for players to dictate who moves where. They have to be far more nuanced in a market that has become all about the selling club.
Their power has been diluted, but it was much different in 2004. Chelsea were revelling in the limelight, and that one summer produced a team that would last for the next 10 years.
It wasn't just Chelsea's best transfer window; those couple of months represented the most pivotal in their history.
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