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Chelsea bring Brighton & Hove Albion’s head of recruitment Sam Jewell to Stamford Bridge Fifteen months ago, Chelsea brought Brighton & Hove Albion’s head of recruitment Paul Winstanley to Stamford Bridge .
Jewell resigned from American Express and was subsequently placed on gardening leave by Brighton while the club agreed to a compensation package.
Chelsea have paid out more than £230m for 10 Albion staff in the past 18 months since Todd Boley arrived in west London.
So far, none of these acquisitions have been able to replicate the success they enjoyed with Brighton and the Blues. Glow Up Graham Potter and his coaching staff were gone within seven months of a £21m acquisition from American Express.
Winstanley has performed so well that Chelsea have felt the need to bring in his successor from Brighton. In terms of players, neither Marc Cucurella, Moises Caicedo or Roberto Sanchez lived up to their price tag.
You might think Chelsea would have learned their lesson by now – it’s culture, environment and institutions that bring Brighton success, not people.
but not. Instead, Boly continues to invest more money in the same way Brighton did, buying anything unconfirmed at American Express. How did someone so fat become so rich?
Jewell will take on a “global role within Chelsea’s multi-club operations”. Boley hopes to adopt a more data-driven recruitment strategy at the many clubs in which Clearlake Capital has a stake.
What Boley and Clearlake had failed to understand so far was that Jewell and Winstanley before him had only some understanding of how Albion’s algorithms and data analysis worked.
They know what they need to know. Only one person knows how it all fits together and works. Tony Bloom probably won’t be selling himself for any price…we hope.
Where the Spanish-speaking Jewell has won praise is that he was one of the main driving forces behind Brighton’s focus on the South American transfer market.
He played a leading role in the acquisition of Caicedo. Alexis Mac Allister, Julio Enciso and Facundo Buonanotte, meanwhile, all mined from the continent where Jewell specializes.
Jewell will start at Stamford Bridge in November and should have a garden that would make Alan Titchmarsh envious.
Brighton wasted no time replacing Jewell. Assistant technical director Mike Cave and scouting and intelligence manager George Holmes took over Jewell’s duties.
It might be easier to congratulate Cave on his move from Brighton to Chelsea now rather than waiting until August 2025.
Cave joined Albion from Fulham last season. Holmes has been with Albion since 2011 and has specialized in European recruitment, including players such as Jan Paul van Hecke, Simon Adingra and Pervis Estupinan.
Brighton have also signed Jurgen Locadia and Alireza Jahanbakhsh from European clubs over the past decade, but let’s not overthink that.
Instead, consider the fact that Brighton are happy to make internal appointments to show they have confidence in their system.
Roberto De Zerbi summed it up perfectly with his famous quote: “The big clubs can buy players, but they cannot buy our soul and our spirit.”
Boley might try, though.
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