Former Premier League winner Tim Sherwood believes the long term contracts Chelsea have handed their players is effecting their hunger.
Chelsea have got a number of first team stars tied down to seven and eight year contracts, a move which has been a regular occurrence since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital took over the club in May 2022.
It is a move that Sherwood believes has dampened the hunger of Chelsea’s players and speaking as a guest on The Kelly and Wrighty show said: “We know why they’ve given them long contracts because of Financial Fair Play to spread it over the amount of years.”
“But not one person has given a thought to when you give an eight year contract to a play on extraordinary amounts of money, what happens then? they get comfortable. They think, ‘don’t put me in the squad because it interferes with my social life, I’m in London, I’m having a good time’.”
“That’s no good, you need them to be hungry all of the time. You see loads of players when they’re in the last year of their contract, they seem to perform better. These have got it too much too early.”
Sherwood also criticised the club’s owners and business model adding: “They’ve just taken Sam Jewell in there from Brighton, Paul Winstanley is already in there, it looks like they’re buying up that model, they can learn, how Chelsea can learn from Brighton from that model.”
“They need to learn from someone because they’ve got it drastically wrong.”
It hasn’t been an easy start to life in London for Chelsea’s new owners who have already sacked two managers in Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter whilst the club endured a dismal 2022/2023 campaign finishing 12th.
The Stamford Bridge outfit aren’t fairing much better this season with the Blues languishing in 11th place and facing the possibility of missing out on European football for the second consecutive season.
