Buy, buy or bye, bye

By Alan Shearer
SIR Alex Ferguson always said you have to strengthen when you are at your strongest.

If his Manchester United side won the English Premier League soccer title, Fergie used to sign two or three top players in the summer just to freshen things up.

That is how you stay at the top for a sustained period of time. At Blackburn, when we won the title in 1995, we did not strengthen and were made to pay with a seventh-place finish the following year.

I fear Chelsea might have made the same mistake this summer. Yes, they have signed some good players in Alvaro Morata, Antonio Rudiger and Tiemoue Bakayoko, but they started Sunday’s Community Shield without any of them.

And they have also let six of last season’s title-winning squad leave, including John Terry and Nemanja Matic, with Diego Costa seemingly soon to join them.

There is no doubt they look short, which showed in Sunday’s penalty shootout defeat to Arsenal.

What doesn’t help is the fact that their best player, Eden Hazard, is set to miss the start of the season due to a fractured ankle.

Chelsea have 13 or 14 very good players who will match anyone. But with Champions League football this season, they are going to need more than that if they want to compete on all fronts. — Reuters