Chelsea's Failure to Sign a Top CB & GK is Embarrassing. Sort It Out.
The deals should have been done & would have changed our season
https://siphillipstalkschelsea.substack.com/p/chelseas-failure-to-sign-a-top-cb
There’s no hiding it now. The fact is the Sporting Directors have failed to address two key positions in the last 4 windows, and we’re now facing the consequences. I’m talking of course, about goalkeeper, and most significantly, centre back.
Head coach Enzo Maresca has wanted a new CB since January. He wanted one in the summer, even more so when Levi Colwill was injured. Chelsea’s answer was to recall Trevoh Chalobah, who whilst a great squad or rotational player, has shown this season he’s not the man to be starting every week at a club of the level we want to be.
We tried to sign a CB in the summer. If not for Real Madrid coming in last minute, we’d probably have signed Dean Huijsen. That’s not on the club at all, Real Madrid is Real Madrid, and it was his dream move. But to then completely neglect the position when there were other gettable targets available, is not good enough. Yes, we had to sell to buy, but again, plan ahead and be ruthless.
We weren’t, and now we’re basically relying on Josh Acheampong to stay fit. Our two best CBs are 19 and 22 years old and one is out till next season.
Here’s a staggering fact. Of the £1.6 BILLION Chelsea have spent, only £198m has been spent on CBs. That’s half of what we’ve spent on midfield and less than half of what we’ve spent on attack. Having Colwill, Trev, Silva and Acheampong already here is NOT an excuse.
Our biggest CB spend has been £69m on Wes Fofana who has played 39 games in over 3 years. Basically 12 games per season at most.
The second highest? Axel Disasi for £38m.
That’s embarrassing. As soon as Silva left, given Fofana’s injury history, we should have been signing a top CB to play with Levi. Josh could have played in the Conference League last season to develop and been eased in. Then this season, this CB and Josh would have been our first choice pairing, with Chalobah and Tosin rotating as squad players.
Instead we’re in this absurd place where a 19 year old academy player is our best CB and none of the others are good enough to start regularly. We have one top CB, 2 squad players and 2 injury prone CBs.
This is why it makes me laugh that people blame head coach Enzo Maresca for our defensive issues and bad results. Last season we had the third best defence in the PL, with Levi fit and in form, playing with a combo of Fofana, Trev, Josh and Tosin in rotation. This season Levi is out and its all gone to shit defensively. And it’s not the coaching, it’s a combination of fatigue, injury and Maresca not being backed in the market at CB.
As for GK, we all saw the absolute shambles of a move for Mike Maignan this summer. He wanted to come, he was ready to come, and we blew it over £4m. Shambolic.
Maignan would have added authority, leadership, organisation, a winning mentality and his distribution would have helped our attack, not just our defence. Not a chance we have that mess against United with Maignan in goal. He’s also old enough not to block the path of Mike Penders, the long term option at GK. He would have cost only £22m, which is an absolute snip.
Maresca wanted him, we failed to get it done because we were cheap, simple as that. Simply not good enough for a club of the level of Chelsea.
The players we did sign this summer I was impressed with. I was even more impressed with the sales we made, the Sporting Directors did a great job there. I understand the constraints of the UEFA punishment too.
But elite Sporting Directors plan ahead for such situations and make ruthless decisions, and get deals done. These two positions being resolved would have meant at least 4-5 more points already this season, and up in 2nd place in the league.
It’s absolutely non-negotiable for us to address these positions in the next two windows. Non-negotiable. If they don’t, the SDs know where the door is. I’m personally sick and tired of Maresca, who achieved two trophies and top 4 last year, not getting the backing he earned. He’s been proved right about his requests this summer and he’s the one who gets the stick for the results.
Si reported that former scout Mick Brown has suggested we may go for a top CB in the January window. I hope that’s right and it happens. If we can get a top CB in January, it would have a hugely positive impact on our season. There’s also been reports we want a proven established GK too. I hope they are right as well. No excuses, get the deals done. Combined with players coming back from injury, I truly believe that would get us much closer at the top.
The Sporting Directors haven’t got it right at CB and at GK, and that needs to change as soon as possible.
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