Chelsea transfers: A promising summer slipped into a farce of panic buys and a roll call of rejection
Toby Brown of fan site TheChels.org delivers his verdict after Ross Barkley, Fernando Llorente and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain all snub moves to the champions
WHAT started out as a promising summer of transfer activity seemingly descended into farce as deadline day drew to a close with reports of not one, not two... but three players snubbing moves to Chelsea in favour of other clubs.
Like many other Chelsea supporters I saw the signings of Alvaro Morata, Antonio Rudiger, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Willy Caballero as a good start, but knew we still needed more players to sustain a challenge on all fronts.
This became even more of an issue when we started to sell or release players that either had an impact last season, or we’d hoped, in the cases of Nathaniel Chalobah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek especially, to have more of an impact this season.
Sadly it wasn’t to be and with quite some time still left until the transfer window closed, rumours and reports circled around a few key players we seemed to be chasing to fill the obvious gaps in our squad.
Alex Sandro, was a prime example.
Not a day went by without one report or another that we’d upped our bids, been rejected, wasn’t for sale and around in circles it went, it seemed clear we wouldn’t be able to sign him so why did we leave it so late to look at alternatives?
From what appeared to be a structured plan at the start of the transfer window seemed to slip into a farce of panic buys at the end, and it didn’t work out too well for Chelsea.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain didn’t look like a primary target all summer, but then –despite Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger saying he’d stay - we had a bid accepted and were given permission to talk to the player.
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For whatever reason he didn’t like what he heard, cue a bid from Liverpool and not long after the Ox is a red.
Fernando Llorente was another rumoured target yet again for some reason either a bid never materialised or we were never really serious until the last minute, was he a backup plan for someone else or did we genuinely want him?
However it came about, a player who’d previously worked with Antonio Conte and respected him, and who looked like he’d get a decent amount of game time with us, decided to move to Spurs instead.
Can you see him starting ahead of their front three?
Then we get to probably the strangest snub of them all, Ross Barkley, who apparently rejected us mid-medical depending on which story you read, but who was later claimed to be annoyed at Everton rejecting a Spurs bid for him and wanted to make his mind up in January.
Firstly I can’t understand why we were looking to sign a player who is injured until Christmas.
And, secondly why did he get all the way to Cobham only to change his mind?
Add Romelu Lukaku into this mix and that’s quite a roll call of rejection this summer, greater than any I can remember before.
The signings of Danny Drinkwater and Davide Zappacosta were completed before the 11pm deadline but they seem scant consolation for what many were expecting, especially given those we missed out on.
That’s not to disrespect them as players as I think they’ll both do well.
They just seem like side notes to a far bigger story of non-transfers.
I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe Michael Emanalo’s voicemail greeting is a little unfriendly, maybe they didn’t like the tea and coffee on offer, or maybe they just don’t like what they saw at our club.
If it’s the latter, that’s a big concern, and sends out very worrying signs for the future.
