As I’ve been reporting for some time now, Chelsea have always been looking at the goalkeeper market and the centre back market this summer, it’s just never been the main priority. And this is because Enzo Maresca asked the club to prioritise improving the attack first.
For goalkeeper, as I’ve explained a few times now, it’s very complex and there are many reasons as to why so far they haven’t signed a new keeper or gone back in for Mike Maignan. I’m not fully ruling it out, but it would need one of Robert Sanchez or Filip Jorgensen to be sold, and that’s now hugely unlikely unless a late surprise.
For centre back, I’m a tiny bit more hopeful on because Enzo Maresca has asked for one, but I still see it as unlikely this late in the window now. Chelsea would need to sell Axel Disasi, Renato Veiga, and maybe even Trevoh Chalobah to be able to bring in a new centre back now. I say Chalobah and not Benoit Badiashile because the latter is injured until September.
There is nothing to suggest right now that Chelsea will sell Chalobah, but he’s always been one on the list that they would certainly listen to offers for.
The reasons Chelsea are not buying a new goalkeeper and a new centre back is varied, but one of them is FIFA. Chelsea need to make sure their transfer balance stays ‘positive’ otherwise the fine they’ve got is going to increase even more but not only that.
Kieran Gill of The Daily Mail reports:
‘Chelsea’s complex agreement with UEFA included a record fine worth £26.8m rising to £78.5m, but the key sporting sanction warned how the club ‘may not register any new player on List A to UEFA club competitions unless the List A Transfer Balance is positive’.
‘Chelsea have less than two weeks to prove to UEFA that they have balanced their books enough to be permitted to add their abundance of summer signings to Enzo Maresca’s Champions League squad for this season.
‘UEFA have now confirmed that their auditors will only be accounting for the money made on those who were named in the squad submitted by Chelsea for last season’s Conference League knockout stages.
‘Crucially, that means the sales of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to Everton, Noni Madueke to Arsenal and Mathis Amougou to Strasbourg will work towards satisfying UEFA, but the exits of Felix et al will not.’
And that is why we are seemingly stuck without addressing the goalkeeper and centre back positions. But it begs the question, why are we prioritising Alejandro Garnacho so highly when there are more pressing concerns?
But as reported, Chelsea ARE in the centre back market looking at the options so anything can still happen.
On centre backs at Chelsea, Kieran Gill continued:
“While Chelsea are constantly monitoring the market in case opportunities crop up, it would likely require someone leaving the Blues in order for them to bring anyone in.”
So there you have it folks. There’s still some very slight hope, but the likelihood is now that Chelsea aren’t going to sign a new goalkeeper or a new centre back. But don’t believe reports that claim they are ‘happy’ with what they’ve got. Enzo Maresca certainly isn’t.
It is true that Robert Sanchez has impressed them a lot more lately. But they literally tried to sign Mike Maignan this summer, as well as Dean Huijsen. So they absolutely wanted to improve BOTH positions this summer. FIFA and our own odd priorities are now making that unlikely.
