Chelsea will now pay a steeper price for their last-minute transfers
By George Perry
Danny Drinkwater may want to hire Mino Raiola for the next three weeks. Chelsea are now more desperate than ever for new signings, and selling clubs are waiting by the phone ready to reject the first offer.
Leicester City rejected Chelsea’s first bid of £15 million for midfielder Danny Drinkwater. A few hours before the Blues kicked off against Burnley, The Telegraph reported Chelsea would up their bid to £25 million. Now that Cesc Fabregas and Gary Cahill will join Tiemoue Bakayoko and Eden Hazard on the bench for the next three games, Leicester City may ask Roman Abramovich to fund a new training ground.
Chelsea are learning harsh lessons this summer in how desperation affects football finance. Each misstep in the Diego Costa affair reduced Chelsea’s potential asking price. Even if there were suitors besides Atletico Madrid, none would have needed to buy as much as Chelsea needed to sell. Antonio Conte’s text likely reduced Costa’s fee more than the amount of baggage the Spanish striker brings with him.
Other than Diego Costa, though, Chelsea’s board have been quite adept at selling players. They are still £40 million in the black on transfers in 2017. They have made this profit by selling more players than they have in any off-season in the last decade. Through it all they ignored increasingly obvious signs and public calls from players and staff for reinforcements.
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Chelsea’s board may have thought that the team would not lose any more players until after Tiemoue Bakayoko or Eden Hazard returned. They may have thought that Victor Moses was the only casualty of playing Arsenal at Wembley. Perhaps they believed that Chelsea’s squad could not get any thinner. If so, Craig Pawson disavowed them of that idea in under 15 minutes.
Chelsea now has no choice but to pay whatever a selling club demands. They cannot defend their title or advance in the Champions League with the current starting XI. They will struggle to finish in the top four with their current bench and depth. And they can no longer think that things could not get any worse, because on Saturday afternoon they did, as they always have a tendency to do.
Everton, Leicester City, Barcelona, Arsenal and Southampton all have players high in Chelsea’s transfer rumour mill. Everton and Southampton, in particular, have wantaway players in Ross Barkey and Virgil van Dijk, respectively.
Until Saturday, those clubs were fending off low-ball offers from clubs hoping to take advantage of the discontent. Now they hold the upper hand as even the most blinkered pollyanna’s among Chelsea fans are now talking about panic buys.
Virgil van Dijk is one of the few players who could start in his first available game at Chelsea. £60 million sounds much cheaper is it means van Dijk starts against Tottenham, rather than shuffling around David Luiz and Andreas Christensen. Likewise, Danny Drinkwater could work off much of a £30 million transfer fee if it means entering October without last year’s drama.
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Chelsea at least had a modicum of control and leverage in the transfer market over the summer. With two reaches into Craig Pawson’s pocket, the tables have turned and the Blues’ position is obvious. Everton and Southampton can now benefit from a seller’s market, with Chelsea as the suppliant buyer.