For a hungry club intent on conquering the world – Buzz Lightyear’s “To infinity and beyond” could be the new Chelsea motto – it seems strange to report that stability is the new buzzword around Stamford Bridge.

As the club announced a record turnover of £190.5 million and slightly reduced losses of £74.8 million yesterday, the most striking aspect of the day was that everything appeared so serene. Chelsea’s hypothetical goal of breaking even by 2009-10 still seems to exist in a galaxy far, far away, although with sponsorship revenues up by 89 per cent because of a new deal with adidas, they are moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.

With transfer spending reduced from £126.7 million to £11.7 million over the past two years, Chelsea’s main problem is that salaries account for a staggering 71 per cent of their turnover, compared with 43.6 per cent at Manchester United – a wage structure only sustainable because of the largesse of Roman Abramovich, the owner. The Russian has spent £578 million on his personal plaything since buying the club five years ago, so it is just as well that, as Bruce Buck, the chairman, claimed, his interest remains as strong as ever.

“We know him pretty well, we talk to him and we see him a lot. His enthusiasm for football and for Chelsea over the last 4¾ years has not waned, it has only increased,” Buck said. “When a fellow puts more than £500 million of his own money into a football club, he doesn’t just walk away from it.

“Every year we tell him how the club is doing on the business side and we set goals with him, but it’s fair to say he’s more interested in the detail of the football side. That’s really why he invested in the club in the first place – because he loves football.”

Abramovich’s love affair with Chelsea appeared to be burning out because of a series of rows with José Mourinho this time last year, although it has been rekindled since Avram Grant replaced the Portuguese as first-team coach in September. Grant is a personal friend of Abramovich and speaks with him regularly. Peter Kenyon, the chief executive, insisted that such harmony vindicated the decision to part with Mourinho.

“There’s still a lot of noise around the club, but the noise is around football,” he said. “It’s less controversial and that’s a fact. That’s translated into letting the management get on with the job in hand. You would have to say there’s more stability under the new manager, yes.

“What we were very confident about was that the quality of squad we had was significant, the infrastructure around the club was significant and there was one variable, which was the new manager. We’d worked over the previous three or four months with Avram and I think the results today are not what 99 per cent in that room were expecting – and I think you’ve got to give full credit to Avram. Several months on, being in our first final [the Carling Cup] on Sunday, still in [contention to win] the Premier League, the Champions League and the FA Cup, I think you’ve all got to recognise that he’s done a good job.”

Grant will be given money to spend on transfers and that £11.7 million figure is likely to increase next year unless there are significant sales, although Kenyon ruled out a move for Ronaldinho, the Barcelona forward – a prospect that Abramovich has entertained in the past.

“I’m pretty sure we won’t be signing Ronaldinho,” he said. “We’re always looking to keep the age profile right. It’s fundamentally got to be somebody who will contribute to the team and have a long-term view.”

Kenyon remains committed to the notion of breaking even, although the target of being internationally recognised as a leading club by 2014 seems more realistic. “I don’t think it’s something we’re postponing,” he said. “It’s ambitious, it’s always been ambitious. It’s no less ambitious than saying that in ten years’ time we want to be recognised as a top international club, it’s no more ambitious than saying we want to win.”