John Obi Mikel warns Chelsea that four star players could leave this summer | Football

John Obi Mikel has warned Chelsea that four star players could leave if they persist with their current transfer model and fail to establish a clear set of ‘objectives’.

Chelsea have adopted a youth-led recruitment strategy since Todd Boehly’s BlueCo purchased the club from Roman Abramovich back in 2022.

It has seen the Blues invest heavily in largely young and untested talent, while countless experienced, trophy-winning members of the dressing room have been allowed to leave.

This meant Liam Rosenior inherited one of the youngest first-team squads in European football when he took over the reins from Enzo Maresca at Stamford Bridge in January.

With Chelsea’s results dropping off markedly before the international break, questions surrounding the club’s transfer model – and an apparent lack of leadership – have intensified amongst the fanbase.

Marc Cucurella only added to the feeling of uncertainty and instability with his comments in the Spanish media this week, criticising the board’s wayward thinking and questioning the decision to sack Maresca.

It comes after Enzo Fernandez threw his future into doubt in the wake of Chelsea’s Champions League elimination at the hands of PSG, with the midfielder refusing to rule out a move away from west London in the summer.

Fernandez also admitted he would be keen to one day live in Madrid during a recent interview with Argentine streamer Marcos Giles, fuelling rumours of a possible big-money move to the Bernabeu.

‘That’s not a leader,’ Obi Mikel said of Fernandez’s remarks on The Obi One Podcast.

‘That’s something where if you have leaders, if you have leaders that players respect and look up to, you wouldn’t come out and make those statements because you’d be thinking, “How is this going to go down in the dressing room? How is this going to go down with the top players, the big players, when they see this?”, after we’ve been dumped out of the Champions League.

‘You were the captain in that game and you come out and make those statements… how would that go down well with the senior players in the dressing room?

‘He’s looked at it and he’s thinking, “Who the f*** is going to hold me responsible in that dressing room?”… no one! The leadership is not there.

‘So he thinks, “I can come out, say whatever the f*** I want, no one is going to hold me responsible”, and that’s exactly what happened.’

According to Obi Mikel, Fernandez should simply ‘f*** off” if that is truly his wish as ‘no player is bigger than the football club’.

‘I have to say about Enzo Fernandez that his progression at the football club started getting better,’ the former Chelsea and Nigeria midfielder added.

‘When we signed him, everyone was questioning it. But he had a good season last season and he scored a few goals, he was arriving late in the box, getting goals and winning us games.

‘But for him to come out and make such a statement after we’ve been disgracefully dumped out of the Champions League, and you come out after wearing the captain’s armband… no player is bigger than the football club.

‘If he’s had enough, put your hands up, f*** off and we move on. We move on.

‘No player player is bigger than the football club, especially a club as huge as Chelsea.

‘You cannot come out and say that, it doesn’t matter what is going on. It doesn’t matter what is happening, you’re being paid handsomely to be at this football club, you should be grateful that you’re playing for a club like Chelsea.’

Though Obi Mikel can see where Fernandez’s ‘frustration’ has come from, he encouraged the Argentina international to show respect for the fans who continue to show their support and pay his wages.

He continued: ‘I can understand, a little bit, his frustration, but you still have to respect the badge, you still have to respect the football club, you still have to respect the fans.

‘The fans are the ones who pay your wages.

‘When you come out and make that statement, that is very, very disrespectful to the football club and to the fans.’

Obi Mikel, a two-time Premier League winner with Chelsea, believes the balance of the squad has been lost and there needs to be a mixture of youth and experience if the club are to return to their former glory.

‘The strategy of the football club right now is bringing in young players, but where is the experience?’ he went on.

‘You need a bit of experience to guide these young players because this is the Premier League, this is the most difficult league in the world.

‘When you bring in those young players from Brazil, Spain, Africa, wherever you’re bringing them from, this is a difficult, difficult league, this is the most difficult league in the world.

‘They need somebody in the game, on the pitch, to be able to guide them when the game is tough, when the game is difficult.

‘It doesn’t matter how good you are as a young player, this is the Premier League and it will eat you up. You need a bit of experience to be able to guide you through games.

‘When you don’t have that, you struggle, you will struggle massively, so, for me, the strategy of the football club is to bring in those young players… but you still need experience.

‘You need a mixture of whatever you need to do and still keep the culture of the football club which is winning trophies.’

Unless Chelsea manage to send out a clear message to both players and fans over their objectives, Obi Mikel can see many of the club’s biggest names heading for the exit door.

He explained: ‘Right now, we have players like Cole Palmer, players like Enzo Fernandez, Marc Cucurella, Moises Caicedo… when they start getting phone calls from the likes of Real Madrid…

‘Florentino Perez [Real Madrid president] is a master in stealing players from clubs. He puts in this bid and you can’t refuse, you can’t refuse a phone call from Florentino Perez.

‘That’s why I question it [Chelsea’s current model] and that’s why I say: what is the objective? The objective of this club has to be winning, winning trophies.

‘We don’t want to become a club like Arsenal where it’s taken them 22 years to be on the verge of winning the Premier League. We don’t want to be that.

‘We don’t want to become that sort of club, we want to be back winning the Premier League, because the Premier League is the creme de la creme.

‘We’ve been so spoiled winning these types of trophies so I don’t know the objectives of the football club. The owners have to come out and tell everybody what is the aim of the football club. It’s as simple as that because the fans have the right to know.

‘And when you have these players, there’s no smoke without fire. Right now, we know that Cole Palmer is being linked with Manchester United, Cucurella has come out and said he’s thinking about his future and Enzo Fernandez the same thing.

‘Moises Caicedo hasn’t come out and said it but if he gets a phone call from Real Madrid, he’s gone, mate, because they don’t know what their future is, they don’t know when they will start winning trophies again.

‘They’re thinking about their future now, they don’t want to wait another four or five years.’

Chelsea will look to end their wretched four-match losing streak when they return to action against Port Vale in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Saturday.

Eight days later, Rosenior’s men turn their attentions back to Premier League matters with a daunting contest at home to Manchester City.

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