Chelsea: Quid pro quo transfers are a quick way to collapse
By Travis Tyler
These days, player swaps are rare in football. Chelsea is caught in several rumors of them, however. They rarely work in the long term for clubs anymore.
Swap deals used to be a much more common occurrence. On paper, they make sense. Team A wants Player X from Team B, Team B wants Player Y from Team A. It makes sense to simply swap the players (perhaps with some cash as well). There are lots of added variables, but if the players are keen the deal can happen.
But swap deals started to fade away because boards became more football oriented. Yes, they should be football oriented. But many are more focused on the business. And swap deals often make business sense. Both teams get something they need while offloading something they do not. Football wise, they make less sense.
Every swap deal, even with cash, has the chance to be unbalanced. And when trading an older player for a younger, the team that gets the older is often the one that gets the short end of the trade. That is where Chelsea is right now.
Chelsea completed one swap deal of shorts back in January. Michy Batshuayi went on loan to Dortmund so Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could go to Arsenal so Olivier Giroud could go to Chelsea. Now the Blues are rumored to want to swap Alvaro Morata for Gonzalo Higuain. That would be a disastrously terrible thing to do.
This is where the business versus football sense argument returns. On paper, Higuain is the better player. He has better stats than Morata and has kept them up for longer. But when it comes to football sense, the deal makes no sense at all.
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Morata had a tough season last year but many players do in their first Premier League season. Furthermore, Higuain is already 30. He is not going to improve or stay on the same level; he will only degrade in quality from here on. Trading a 25 year old Morata for a 30 year old Higuain is just ridiculous.
But even when a swap deal makes sense, it can be a bad idea in context. Take Willian for Anthony Martial for example. Chelsea is looking to offload Willian and will either sell him if a high asking price is matched or if Manchester United is willing to swap Martial for him. The players involved make sense. The timing does not because of Barcelona.
Barcelona wants Willian now and is willing to spend big to get him. Manchester United, meanwhile, want Willian but not necessarily at the expense of Martial going to a rival. So while Chelsea pursue the latter, the former becomes more unlikely. And it would not be unlikely to see United drag the saga on only to pull the rug out from Chelsea. Barcelona is offering the money now and Chelsea should take it.
The board may see these swaps as improving the squad, but they do the opposite. Morata for Higuain is not an equal trade and it would make the board and club look foolish. Martial is not worth the wait; Chelsea should take the cash now and look elsewhere for a winger.
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The board has to be smarter than they are currently. They need to depart from pure business sense and starting thinking with football sense. Of course, they need a technical director in place to help do that. But on the current course, Chelsea is set to be the loser of any swap deal.