Chelsea Transfers

[Vesper 29,127]

On 15/01/2025 at 14:17, mkh said:

🤔Ronald Araujo has agreed in principle on new contract at Barcelona.

(Fabrizio Romano)
 

sigh

[mkh 327]

Torino were in London today and presented Chelsea with a definitive offer of just under €10m for Casadei.

But Chelsea expect to receive a counter-offer from Lazio in the next few hours, willing to go above €10m, including a percentage of the future resale to be allocated to the London club.

{TuttoMercato}

[Vesper 29,127]

2 hours ago, OneMoSalah said:

We needed to replace Thiago Silva

[Vesper 29,127]

Manchester City

https://thedailybriefing.io/i/154875451/manchester-city

• No issues for Abdoukodir Khusanov’s move to Manchester City. All documents are in place with RC Lens, just waiting on a visa for the player then the move will be signed and sealed.

• Vitor Reis seen here travelling to Manchester from Brazil in order to become a new Manchester City player on a €35m deal as planned.

• 

[Vesper 29,127]

Alberto Costa, RB, to Juve

Turin, 15 January 2025 – Juventus Football Club S.p.A. announces that an agreement with Vitória Sport Clube for the definitive acquisition of the registration rights of the player Alberto Oliveira Baio has been reached for a consideration of € 12.5 million, payable in four financial years, with the addition of ancillary costs up to € 1.3 million.

Furthermore, bonuses up to a maximum of € 2.5 million are envisaged upon the achievement of further performance objectives.

Juventus and the player have signed a contract of employment until 30 June 2029.

[Vesper 29,127]

[Vesper 29,127]

6 hours ago, mkh said:

Excl: Bournemouth have agreed terms with Chelsea for 19 year old winger Zain Silcott-Duberry.

Deal includes sell on clause and future incentives for first team appearances, contract until June 2028.

(Fabrizio Romamo)

 

[Vesper 29,127]

5 hours ago, Pizy said:

Arse have clearly realized that they badly need reinforcement up front and appear to be acting.

 

[Vesper 29,127]

2 hours ago, TheHulk said:

I dread to know that list of players.

Florian Wirtz 
Jamal Musiala 
Rafael Leão    
Nico Williams 
Bradley Barcola
Xavi Simons    
Jamie Gittens
Álex Baena  
Kenan Yıldız 
Mathys Tel  
Eliesse Ben Seghir
Malick Fofana

 

[Vesper 29,127]

1 hour ago, mkh said:

EXCLUSIVE Borussia Dortmund have submitted an official loan offer for Renato Veiga (21/🇵🇹). ⚫️🟡

The proposal includes a loan with an option to buy. BVB is prepared to cover Veiga’s full salary and pay a loan fee. The Portuguese international earns slightly less than €4m at CFC. 🔵⚪️

Negotiations are ongoing, and Chelsea is currently evaluating Dortmund’s offer. ⏳

via@SkySportDE

that option better be £30m or more

no fucking clown offer of half that or so

Veiga is the type of player who can become a beast in the Bundesliga

we are NOT here to help Dortmund develop young talent on the super cheap and then sell for 50m plus

[Pizy 18,481]

City are absolutely loading up this window.

I feel like they’re going to be significantly stronger in the second half of the season than that disaster of a first half. 

[Vesper 29,127]

Chelsea chiefs should be ashamed as unforgivable announcement exposes transfer disaster

Chelsea transfer news as embarrassing Trevoh Chalobah U-turn puts co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart in an unwanted spotlight

https://www.football.london/Chelsea-fc/transfer-news/Chelsea-sporting-directors-left-under-30789005

Considering the importance placed on Chelsea's summer 2024 plans, which marked the final window of four laid out by the sporting hierarchy in a bid to transform the squad, it is deeply worrying and concerning that with every passing game the business conducted is more and more questionable. Starting in January 2023, the methods taken to rip up the playing staff and restock have been well documented.

One of those windows - 12 months ago in January 2024 - saw Chelsea complete no incoming transfers at all in a rare moment of reflection and calmness. Strangled partially by the threat of punishment for breaching profitability and sustainability rules (PSRs), the entire footballing world took a step back.

In the two bigger windows either side, Chelsea have been all action. The culmination was Enzo Maresca inheriting a richly talented group in need of cohesion. For three months it seemed as if Chelsea, following the direction of their American-based ownership consortium headed by Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly, might have found a new way to approach things successfully.

Led by co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, the noises around the club leading into this month were not to expect too much. In reality, the club have been plunged into emergency action.

No team wants to boast about having to make significant changes over the winter as it is often a sign of desperation, but the promise of focusing on outgoings at the club in comparison to what has actually happened, is stark. Chelsea are yet to finalise (or get particularly close) to seeing any of their unwanted players moved off the books and have instead been called to action elsewhere.

It is no clearer where Ben Chilwell will play his football after the February 3 deadline. There are options, it is suggested elsewhere, but nothing tangible so far. The same is true for Carney Chukwuemeka, Cesare Casadei, and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. The quartet are all waiting to find new homes.

For Chukwuemeka, Chilwell, and Casadei, the same was true in the summer. Chelsea failed to offload them and instead left Maresca with a bloated squad of aspiring first-team players that has been turned into separate XIs for Conference League or early-round cup matches and then the Premier League.

He is now managing around 25 bodies across competitions. It is a number far too big to keep large portions motivated or within a realistic distance of actually playing the meaningful games domestically.

The aim heading into January was to get those on the fringes of the squad away from the club for their benefit and Maresca's. That is yet to be achieved, meanwhile, entirely predictable circumstances have seen the head coach now left short in other areas.

The little push for Chelsea that has caused the biggest ripple has been an injury to Wesley Fofana. The prognosis that he could be out for the season - or at very least another six weeks plus recovery time, which for him will be lengthy and needs extreme care and caution - has seen plans change dramatically.

Josh Acheampong has overtaken both Tosin Adarabioyo and Axel Disasi in the pecking order at centre-back despite being banished from playing or training with any of the club's teams for two months earlier this season. Trevoh Chalobah, another who was cast aside over the summer, is now the emergency answer. The humble pie that Winstanley and Stewart have had to eat says it all.

He was recalled by Chelsea to act as cover for Fofana and Benoit Badiashile (also injured) whilst Disasi, signed in 2023 to replace Chalobah, is now up for sale in a remarkable turn of events. Whether unfortunate or not, it is an awkward and fundamentally stupid position for the club to find itself in. Adarabioyo was the free alternative from Fulham and is now attracting interest this window as well.

Some will argue that failing to factor in fitness issues for three injury-laden players (Reece James has also left a gap to be filled at right-back) does not meet the criteria for luck. That ignores the wider picture, which is that Chelsea were open to letting Disasi go over the summer but still took him to the pre-season tour of America and included him in the squad.

The sporting directors judged that he was suitable to continue where Chalobah was not. His deficiencies were clear for many to see from the start even if a strong first half of 2023/24 did get things off on the right foot.

Meanwhile, Chalobah wasn't even afforded what is pretty much a basic professional right in this instance. Instead, a player who has spent more than 15 years of his life at Chelsea, working through the academy and on multiple loans, found himself axed (like Acheampong recently and also Conor Gallagher before) from Maresca's squad, not even afforded the grace of being with his teammates whilst a more amicable exit was found. The decision was made that the versatile then-24-year-old had no role to play.

Chalobah, who had outperformed all of Chelsea's defenders in the three-month stretch upon his return from injury at the back end of last season, was once more unwanted. This is nothing massively new for him after Thomas Tuchel also nearly let him go before a late change of heart in 2021.

That has been the Chalobah story. His performances across the past three-and-a-half years are of someone more than solid enough and reliable enough to be part of a team aspiring to finish in the top four, yet he is constantly pushed out.

Chelsea did all they could to cut ties with Chalobah last year. Without him, they would now be accelerating plans to try and sign another high-profile centre-back permanently because Maresca is not happy with what is currently on offer. His move to promote Acheampong so soon after seeing him re-integrated with the squad - another decision going above his head - is evidence that what has been signed is not up to his requirements as coach. The buck must, then, ultimately fall at the feet of those in charge.

Every manager has their own changes that they wish to make to a side but considering Chelsea have committed more than £1billion on new transfers since 2023, it is a deeply embarrassing state of affairs for those who have put it all together. Winstanley and Stewart, specifically, have the keys to Cobham and whilst using academy prospects across the road at the training complex for financial gain to repair damages made by reckless spending, have been forced back to someone they wanted to sell as a pawn in that system.

The total outlay of their tenure is offset to around £750million when sales are taken into account but that does little to account for the size of the error here. Having spent £39million on Disasi, also going to great lengths to secure Adarabioyo, Chelsea have had to crawl back to Chalobah because three players with increasingly worrying injury records are once more out.

The failure to see this for what it is might just be the biggest problem because the activity this week suggests that Winstanley and Stewart wrongly judged not only the quality of Disasi and Adarabioyo but also the overall depth and profiles in the position, all the while acting disrespectfully towards Chaloabh. They acquired both new players actively in a heartless swoop that isolated one of the club's own and have now been forced to backtrack hastily within six months.

That Winstanley was the one to call and speak to Chalobah before he was recalled is one of the most toe-curlingly horrifying things. It is he, along with the recruitment department, who played such a role in exiling Chalobah in the first place. There was no excuse for that treatment in such a manner.

Chelsea will argue that the circumstances arising here are highly unfortunate and that this move demonstrates adaptability as well as humility. In reality, a giant mistake has been exposed.

The decision to try and sell Chalobah, like with Gallagher and Ian Maatsen - to a much lesser extent Lewis Hall - had some sporting justification, even if they weren't overwhelmingly popular. The way in which Chelsea carried out their exits is despicable and should not be tolerated.

It is cold and calculating, except that the calculations still weren't conducted correctly, otherwise this U-turn would not have been necessary. They did not see this graduate as capable of operating in Maresca's possession-based system.

Chelsea are also now in need of more midfield support and might be pushed towards bringing in another left-back, depending on how the window pans out. Listed above, and straight from the academy, readily available to use and always reliable, are a midfielder and two versatile left-backs.

Mistakes are made in the game but when made on this level they warrant genuine evaluation on a professional basis and analysis of those who have carried it all out. The same is true of Gallagher, who Chelsea sold to solidify their position with regards to PSR, but also to buy Joao Felix.

Eighteen months on from his initial loan spell, he has a grand total of three Premier League starts (all against newly promoted teams) and one goal in the league. That came as a substitute in a match Chelsea had already won. He has been limited, like Dewsbury-Hall, to Conference League outings for the bulk of his action. So far, the player-for-player output has not been worth the trade, even accounting for the different positions and roles they play.

Chelsea, under Winstanley and Stewart's guidance, had the benefit of working with Felix previously and deemed his signing this summer worthwhile. The evidence so far suggests otherwise, especially after Jadon Sancho and Pedro Neto were also brought in. Felix's arrival in 2023 was just as confusing and wasteful, ultimately.

Unfortunately for Winstanley and Stewart, the summer criticism does not stop there. The core pillars of a team that Chelsea needed at the end of last season are still the case now despite more turnover in the squad and sizeable spending, especially in attack.

It means that the much-heralded four-window plan which was used to explain the mass outlay and restructuring of the playing squad has proven unsuccessful. That timeframe ended over the summer and was a brief often used to give context to why such drastic steps had been taken to change almost every member of staff on site.

What is left is a squad formed entirely with Winstanley and Stewart's fingerprints all over. It is something they are only too happy to take credit for when it comes to buying Cole Palmer but less responsibility has been taken over the protection and care for someone like Chalobah.

In fact, clear attempts have been made to cover for the Chalobah decision. People do not forget, though, and Chalobah's reception at Stamford Bridge on Monday when Wolves visit will be telling.

Ever since his first game for the club in 2021 - coincidentally against Crystal Palace - which was marked with a goal, he has been a favourite of the match-going support. That was best summed up in May when Chalobah scored the opener against Tottenham in a crucial match in the race for the top four.

On that day, Chelsea fans in the Shed End unfurled a banner pledging their adoration for Gallagher. When Chelsea needed it most, two Cobham graduates stood up. When Winstanley and Stewart found themselves lacking once more, it is no surprise that Chalobah comes to the rescue.

It was known at that stage that Chelsea wanted to sell Gallagher and Chalobah. The pushback from supporters had little impact, though, and both exits eventually went through in controversial and messy ways.

The bigger picture is that over the summer, the sporting directors' two-year cycle also ended with question marks around Chelsea's quality of goalkeeper, centre-backs, midfield, and striker options. All were debated as key points to be addressed in the window but here we are and Chelsea's biggest shortcomings are the mid-table No.1, lack of regular commanding presence in defence, depth in the centre of the park, and support for Nicolas Jackson up front.

These are all massive problems for a squad to have, let alone one that has been so heavily invested in and changed. The answers that the Chelsea recruitment think-tank came up with have hardly paid off.

Renato Veiga, signed for only £12million, is already pushing to leave. He has made it into the Portugal national side in no small part due to now being a Chelsea player but he is keen to be used at centre-back more.

Chelsea cannot offer him those minutes due to Levi Colwill's presence and so a permanent exit is already being discussed with Borussia Dortmund. Although blame must also lie with Veiga, Chelsea's failure to identify his positional preferences before a transfer does not reflect well.

He was not signed to be a starting player immediately and could see a quick profit turned, that is true. Yet Maresca's lack of game time when the schedule ramped up last month says a lot for just how he is viewed. If issues with depth come back to bite Chelsea then again, more than just a portion of accountability must be taken by those who constructed this group.

The goalkeeping scenario is no stronger than it was at the start of the summer either. Christopher Nkunku, who is not and has never been an out-and-out striker, is not providing Jackson with any genuine support. He is wanted by Bayern Munich now and Chelsea have made an approach in the opposite direction for Mathys Tel, a deal which would see one of Europe's best players since 2020 replaced by more potential and raw risk.

Chalobah, the most public humiliation of poor decision-making and horrendous treatment towards a player, is still not seen as the long-term answer to the defensive part of that equation. He is being used here as cover because across four windows Chelsea have been unable to allocate funds effectively or efficiently

The choice to outcast him was misguided and a disgusting, disgraceful and unacceptable way to deal with any player. That the club have been left to go back to him is one of the biggest PR blunders imaginable and is the sort of thing that should bring extreme attention onto the positions of those behind it.

They are fortunate that Chalobah has developed into such a fine person through his time in the academy, nurtured by true experts in the field, that he has taken the chance to come back and not caused more of a fuss. He was made to train with the Under-21 side in the summer because of the club's actions and now he is saving their skin and saving them money in the January window. That is a turn of class and respectability that Chelsea, throughout, have lacked for some time.

The announcement of his return is an acceptance that a mistake was made of some sort. Either Chalobah was a better player than they had realised or the squad was not constructed in a manner to cope with the demands of Premier League football.

Elsewhere and Chelsea, after spending big on Mykhailo Mudryk, loaded their attack with not only the patchy Felix but also Neto. The most goals he has scored in a single league season in England since 2019 is five. There is little evidence of reliable output even when he does stay fit.

This is an egregious sporting error but nothing in comparison to the way Chalobah was discarded and now called back to save some face. In reality, all this has done is turn up the heat on Winstanley and Stewart, who are now on rocky ground.

The pair have never been the most popular, used as evidence against the new ownership's structure and plans across an ambitious but somewhat arrogant metamorphosis of the club. This latest action will do nothing to get them any goodwill and instead cannot be ignored for the sheer magnitude and scope of ineptitude.

Edited 2 hours ago by Vesper