Premier League crisis club of the week: Chelsea
There are plenty of clubs in the Premier League who are enduring their own crisis right now.
West Ham, Leeds United, Wolves are all struggling, but this week's 'Premier League crisis club of the week' could only really be one football team:
Chelsea.
And here's why.
What's the crisis?
Chelsea have spent the guts of £600m on new players over the past two transfer windows under new owner Todd Boehly and they are literally 10th in the Premier League table. £600m to lose 1-0 to a manager-less Southampton at Stamford Bridge... it's not great.
The team directly ahead of Chelsea in the Premier League, Brentford, spent 10x less that the Blues in the two most recent transfer windows.
And to make matters even worse, their Champions League campaign could be set to come to a swift end in the round of 16 after they lost 1-0 to Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of their clash.
Why are they in crisis?
The rather astonishing and worrying fact about the current Chelsea squad is that, despite spending all that money, there's still glaring holes in it.
There's no striker who can score 20 goals plus, no defensive midfielder who can protect the defence, no fit and available top level goalkeeper (no, Kepa Arrizabalaga is not top level). Instead there's (roughly) a trillion inverted wingers all vying to play in the same area of the pitch, and that's it really.
So, with that in mind, recruitment policy has to be considered the main cause of the current crisis.
Signing young players on long contracts is nice, but maybe also sign players that can address needs for the starting XI, Todd? That wouldn't be a terrible idea.
Graham Potter has to shoulder some blame too.
Although he generally did a wonderful job at previous club Brighton & Hove Albion, Potter's football did lack a real cutting edge at times in the final third while at the Amex Stadium and those issues have reared their head at Chelsea too.
Chelsea scoring 23 goals in 23 games in the league - less than what 19th-place Leeds United have managed - is an indictment on the style of play Potter has adopted at the club.
What can they do to rectify it?
The most Chelsea thing to do in this situation is to sack Graham Potter.
And, honestly, it might very well be the best course of action if they can bring in a top level manager like Zinedine Zidane to replace him.
A manager like Zidane, you'd imagine, would get a bit more out of the current Chelsea squad than Potter is and demand a bit more say in transfer dealings too.
Speaking of transfers, amazingly Chelsea simply need to spend more in the summer to fill the gaps they haven't filled in their squad thus far. As mentioned above, there are glaring issues with this Chelsea squad and those issues need to be addressed.
On this edition of Son of Chelsea, part of the 90min podcast network, Daniel Childs discusses the defeat to Southampton and what it could mean for the future of Graham Potter.
If you can't see this embed, click here to listen to the podcast!