Don’t get carried away just yet, Bates cautions Chelsea fans
But as they arrived in Malaysia, Chelsea chairman Ken Bates warned the club's fans not to get carried away prematurely following the takeover of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.
Bates has overseen the arrival of four players at Stamford Bridge for a cool £34million since Abramovich took over but counselled Blues supporters ought to approach this season like any other.
"The expectations of fans are always impossible," he said.
"I'm a fan myself. As a fan my expectations are wild but as a chairman they are more realistic.
"Money alone does not buy you success. There are a few clubs who have bankrupted themselves trying to buy success."
The club have signed Duff, Bridge, Geremi and Glen Johnson so far but Bates insists success in 2003-04 would simply be to improve incrementally on last year.
"Every chairman wants to win everything, if they didn't they'd be in the wrong job," added Bates.
"But Chelsea have never expected to win silverware, so it is a bonus when we do.
"We hope to do better than we did last year. We got to two quarter-finals and went from sixth to fourth. We'd like to improve on that."
Bates backed experienced manager Claudio Ranieri to deal with the rising expectations in his normal manner.
"To be a manager you have to be a fool or a strong man and we have 20 of them in the Premiership," he said.
"Ranieri has a proven track record both at Chelsea and previously in Europe of being a shrewd judge of players."
The Stamford Bridge spending spree began when Abramovich took over the club, a deal that was done on a handshake because Bates liked the "cut of his gib".
And his €4.88 billion.
"I think his money is rather nice," said Bates with a smile. "Mr Abramovich is quiet unlike me shy, retiring, doesn't say a lot. He is a man of his word, like me, and I can say our deal was done on a handshake.
"I came back from our first meeting and said to my secretary, he is worth 5.6 billion dollars, he is 36 and he is good-looking. She said 'is he married?"'
She is not the only one to have fallen for the Russian since his arrival at the club.
But outside of Stamford Bridge, Abramovich is not everyone's favourite man.
While Bates insisted Chelsea had not been over-exuberant in their raid on the transfer market, his Birmingham counterpart David Gold claimed they had abandoned "common sense" and heaped pressures onto smaller clubs.
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