Defender in, striker out: Chelsea’s most inanely persistent transfer rumours
By George Perry
Daniele Rugani is the latest centre-back Chelsea don’t need but is in the transfer rumours anyway. Meanwhile, Borussia Dortmund is the latest destination floated for Alvaro Morata. Just stop.
Daniele Rugani is the latest player to pass the two-part admissions test for Chelsea’s transfer rumour mill. First, he can fog a mirror. Second, he previously played for Maurizio Sarri, in this case at Empoli. That’s all it apparently takes, as Elseid Hysaj, Kalidou Koulibaly, Jorginho, Piotr Zielinski, Raul Albiol, Dries Mertens and others have shown.
If you’re wondering why Empoli’s right-winger from the 2013/14 season, Simone Verdi, is not linked with the Blues, it’s because he has already confirmed his transfer. Now at Bologna, Verdi will complete a move on July 1 to… Napoli. One has to wonder if he inked the deal before Sarri resigned, how much of a role Sarri played in setting up the transfer and if Verdi will soon enter the running to replace Willian on Chelsea’s right wing.
Like many of the others in Chelsea’s rumour circuit (not just the Sarri alumni association) Rugani is a strong player who could definitely be a success at Stamford Bridge under different circumstances. The Blues simply do not need him, nor any other centre-back.
Chelsea have too many centre-backs as it is. Kurt Zouma will likely be loaned, sold or loaned with an option to buy simply because there is no room for him to play the minutes he wants. He did everything he could at Stoke City and proved he is Premier League starting XI calibre. Unfortunately for him, he would face a losing battle to overcome the four incumbents: Andreas Christensen, Antonio Rudiger, Gary Cahill and Cesar Azpilicueta. Then he would have to battle his fellow loanees: Matt Miazga and Jake Clarke-Salter. And Chelsea may have even fewer spaces next year for centre-backs if they shift to a four-man defence.
If Zouma cannot find a place in the squad, neither will Rugani, which means there is no reason to bring him in. Rugani will not want to give up playing time at Juventus to come sit the bench at Stamford Bridge.
At the other end of the pitch and the other direction of the transfer mill, Borussia Dortmund is the latest club supposedly willing to take Alvaro Morata off Chelsea’s hands. Dortmund join the ranks of Juventus and AC Milan as possible destinations.
The whole Morata discussion stems from the fraudulent premise that he flopped in his first season at Chelsea. That premise gives way to the fallacious thinking that Chelsea will cast out their club-record transfer rather than acknowledge the well-proven difficulties of a player’s first season in the Premier League. The rumours foolishly believe, then, that any player Chelsea bring in will have a better debut season in England than Morata, justifying both the sale and the subsequent replacement.
Fraudulent, fallacious and foolish. There’s the Alvaro Morata rumour mill in a nutshell.
Perhaps the only improvement in the Borussia Dortmund rumours is they do not include a swap for a player Chelsea should avoid. The last batch linked Morata to AC Milan in return for Gianluigi Donnarumma, a historically moronic idea, as Abhishek thoroughly described.
Chelsea’s rumour mill is almost perfectly inverted from what they actually need. They need wingers more than anything, yet hardly any are in the rumour mill. Not even Simone Verdi. They have plenty of defenders, but are constantly linked to more. And they have a good corps of strikers, but the rumours have them decapitating the depth chart.
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If only there were any transfer rumours about the one position Chelsea most desperately need to fill: technical director. At least then there would be some coherence to these conversations, let alone some actual business.