Who is the big-money Chelsea flop singled out by Todd Boehly?

One mystery Chelsea star has been left ‘disillusioned’ after being ‘singled out for heavy criticism’ in Todd Boehly’s dressing room dressing down after defeat to Brighton. 

Boehly, was who barracked by supporters after the Blues were turned over at Stamford Bridge in a 2-1 defeat, told his expensively assembled side their form is embarrassing among other home truths.

Now it appears his criticisms were not completely generalised.

The Guardian claim that Boehly, who was in the dressing room with fellow board members Behdad Eghbali and Hansjörg Wyss, ‘singled out’ one player for criticism.

Their report claims that the player, who is now believed to be disillusioned and disgruntled, is ‘senior’ and ‘signed for a large fee in the past 12 months’.

One unnamed Chelsea player is said to have been singled out and left disgruntled as a result

Among the big-money moves made by Chelsea in the Boehly era, they have picked up Enzo Fernandez (£107m), Mykhailo Mudryk (£88.5m), Wesley Fofana (£75m), Marc Cucurella (£60m), Raheem Sterling (£47.5m), Benoit Badiashile (£35m) and Kalidou Koulibaly (£33m).

The wording of the report – specifically ‘senior player’ – is open to interpretation as all of the above are regular first team stars.

But age wise, Badiashile, Fernandez, Mudryk and Fofana are all 22 and still among the younger players in the squad.

Cucurella is 24, Sterling is 28 and Koulibaly is 31. 

The report went on to claim that the player in questioned ‘cut a disgruntled figure in training’ as a result of Boehly’s dressing down, with Frank Lampard’s side preparing to face Real Madrid down 2-0 in their Champions League quarter-final tie.

The Blues have splashed out more than £600m but are currently languishing down in 11th place and look set to miss out on European football altogether next season.  

Boehly visiting the dressing room is not unusual, but the nature of his message raised eyebrows. 

Yet, Lampard said: ‘I am comfortable with that. I had my things to say after the game. 

‘There is maybe some criticism of our old owner of not coming to games and being around that wasn’t always true. 

‘I remember moments as a player of owners first coming into dressing rooms, I remember being happy. I don’t think it’s a bad thing. 

‘I had my things to say, if an owner wants to come in and be positive and speak to the players, they can do that. 

‘No problem with that, it shows passion and that’s the first thing that I like.’

Fans were furious with Boehly and he made his way down to the dressing room afterwards

Lampard is going to need to see plenty of ‘passion’ from his players as they face the ominous task of overturning a 2-0 deficit. 

‘Special things can happen at Stamford Bridge. We have to believe,’ he said.

‘The door is open and it’s up to us whether we want to kick it open further or not.’