There are no end to rumors of players leaving once the transfer window is open. Chelsea need to make sure they do not repeat any of their long history of mistakes as they jump aboard the transfer merry-go-round.
Chelsea will once again be in the thick of player movements in the coming weeks. Chelsea should be careful about who is making the moves, if they care to learn from their history.
Most of the signings will fall into two groups. First are the players who Chelsea buy mid-career. The club expects them to improve the team right away, and they will reach their prime in a few years. The second group often end up going to the loan army.
The first group come under the most scrutiny every time they don the Blue of Chelsea.
There are no guarantees that the players who are brought in to improve the team straightaway are capable of doing that as soon as they arrive. Sometimes they hit their mark from the get-go, like Diego Costa in 2014/15. Sometimes they need more time. Pedro, for example, took his time settling in at Stamford Bridge before becoming an important cog in Chelsea’s run to Premier League in 2016/17.
Chelsea’s rumours early in the transfer windows includes the club looking to offload certain players. Considering how much the club paid for most of their players, it will not be easy to make a profit on them.
Alvaro Morata, for example, is already linked with a move to Juventus. He and Bakayoko are among those who had a difficult first year at Chelsea. But if Chelsea choose to sell, they will likely not come close to what they paid for them in the first place. And then they could just repeat the cycle. Any new players who come in could go through a similarly tough beginning.
Players like Davide Zappacosta, Danny Drinkwater, Emerson and Ross Barkley were not able to feature much for the club. They, too, could be lined up for a move out. But unless the board are able to recruit players who could improve the team right away, there is no point in replacing them with similar players, only to go through the same difficult period for the club.
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All those players have a year of experience at Chelsea and everythingassociated with the club. That experience will help them cope with the upcoming season in a better state than they were a year back. Rather than buying new players and going through the same process, the board will be wise to stick with most of the players who are part of the squad at the moment.