Chelsea legend describes club as 'BEAST' that some signings 'won't handle'

James Shearman

• 23 Aug 2023 12:55 BST
• 4 min read

Chelsea legend Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink believes that some of the new signings 'won't handle the pressure'.

He even described the club as a 'beast', emphasising how difficult it is to succeed at Stamford Bridge.

But he does maintain that Chelsea's project will take time and it is far too early to judge them.

READ MORE: Premier League 2023/24 summer transfers: All the Done Deals

"Look, it is a project," Hasselbaink told Sky Sports. "Chelsea is a project and it will take time.

"You need to give time. They have a lot of players, a lot of talented players but they need to gel and that takes time. It doesn't matter how much money you throw at it.

"The only way they will learn is by playing and having that pressure. You will see some of them will make it and be able to handle it, but some, as always is the case, they won't handle the pressure. That is the nature of the beast.

"I do think Chelsea have bought well, really well with a lot of young players and the most important thing now is to trim the squad because there is still a lot of players. Then mould it and everyone can get to know each other."

Jamie Carragher on transfer strategy

Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher, on the other hand, is not a believer in Chelsea's high-risk approach of signing unproven young talent.

He believes the Blues should have built a better team with the extraordinary money they have spent over the past three windows.

“I do feel when you spend that amount of money, it does feel strange when we’re all asked before the start of the season, not many people are putting Chelsea in the top four," Carragher told Sky Sports.

“We’re not all top tipsters, we know that, we know when the results come out. It doesn’t mean they won’t finish there but not many people are thinking that squad with that much money spent on it will finish in the top four.

"That doesn’t seem right to me because that is an unbelievable amount of money.

“And I do feel, even though we were really impressed with them the first two games, if you said to me ‘how many players do they need to challenge Manchester City, I’m not speaking about winning the league?’

“I still think they need a goalkeeper, even though they just signed [Roberto] Sanchez. They probably still need a top centre-half because Thiago Silva’s 38. I don’t think there’s a real out and out goalscorer.

"Your goalscorer doesn’t have to be your centre-forward, Liverpool’s is Salah who plays on the right-wing so it’s not a dig at Jackson.

“But you think of those really important decisions, it still feels as though four players would have to go into that team to get them to just challenge Manchester City and that doesn’t feel right considering the amount of money that they’ve spent.”