Paul Pogba
The pipe dream of pretty much every club in Europe right now is to sign Paul Pogba. While I don’t believe Chelsea are the first option some political issues open up the idea of a transfer to Chelsea ahead of other clubs.
Firstly, Barcelona, known to be Pogba’s first choice of a club to transfer to from Juventus, are flat broke at the moment. Somehow, despite having one of the most marketable football clubs and players in the world, upper management at the Camp Nou has fiscally destroyed the club once again.
New contracts for Lionel Messi and Neymar are proving costly and they simply will not be competing in the incredibly high stakes game of cat and mouse that is Pogba’s pursuit.
The second option, Real Madrid, can definitely afford Pogba. Those captains of industry at the Bernabeu enjoy staring down at the footballing landscape from their piles of money and do seem to have some interest in the player.
That said, they don’t really need him (although that’s never stopped them before) and a reported €19 million negotiating fee from agent Mino Raiola on top of the presumptive £100 million transfer fee are holding the deal up.
This is exactly the kind of landscape Chelsea could exploit. Conte and Pogba have a wonderful relationship and the player is interested in the Premier League. The contest here would really be between Manchester United and Chelsea.
Whether or not Manchester United can sustain the embarrassment of spending 100 million on a player they let leave for free will absolutely play a role. The real question is whether Chelsea are willing to spend that money when they have a player (Ruben Loftus-Cheek) who could be as good as Pogba.
This one is unlikely but definitely worth having hope over when compared to the more outlandish rumors out there.
Next: Youri Tielemans et al.