Chelsea’s transfer rumour mill has gone quiet in the past week. Too quiet.
Jorginho and Rob Green are confirmed in their roles at Chelsea. Allison Becker and Aleksandr Golovin are settling in at Liverpool and Monaco, respectively. Gonzalo Higuain seems finally out of the picture with a move to AC Milan imminent. Things are quiet as Chelsea enter the usual mid-window lull.
This sets Chelsea up for the most dangerous part of the transfer window: the final days. This is when the Blues tend to make their most head-scratching moves right at the deadline. For every Marcos Alonso there are many more Papy Djilobodji’s.
In the last five summer windows, Chelsea made their most important transfers in mid-July. Diego Costa, N’Golo Kante, Alvaro Morata and Jorginho all signed between July 14 and July 21 of their respective year. Only in 2015 did the Blues not make a notable summer purchase.
Following the mid-July purchases, the Blues tend to go dormant until the closing days or even hours of the transfer window.
After re-signing Didier Drogba on July 25, 2014, the Blues did not make another until Loic Remy on deadline day. In 2016, N’Golo Kante signed on July 16. The Blues then announced Eduardo on August 23, and David Luiz and Marcos Alonso on deadline day. Last season, Alvaro Morata signed on July 21, and then nothing much happened until Danny Drinkwater and Davide Zappacosta on deadline day.
Nervous yet?
None of the late August arrivals spent much time in the rumour mill before taking their picture with Michael Emenalo. Marcos Alonso was a nobody when he arrived, and he was completely outshone by the return of David Luiz. Davide Zappacosta had little profile outside of Serie A (and perhaps not much in Serie A, for that matter). Danny Drinkwater had been linked a few times with Chelsea, but no one much took the rumour seriously. As August progressed, thoughts of it faded.
More concerning than what anyone knew of the players beforehand is how those players turned out. Marcos Alonso is by far the most successful of the deadline day arrivals. Antonio Conte inspired one good season out of David Luiz, but Luiz was always a stop-gap. Those tensions contributed to Conte’s undoing. And in 2015, the year without any major summer signing, the deadline day arrivals were Papy Djilobodji and Michael Hector.
The Blues had better outcomes with their late signings in some earlier seasons. Juan Mata, Cesar Azpilicueta and Willian all arrived in the last week of August of 2011, 2012 and 2013, respectively.
Perhaps it is significant that these players arrived late, but not as late as possible. The week between their signing days and the deadline could mean the difference between a quietly hopeful buy, and a desperation panic buy.
Chelsea FC love their patterns and, without Michael Emenalo to steer the course, many patterns are on auto-pilot. The club are doing what they think Emenalo would have them do, without any of the plan or purpose Emenalo (or any technical director) would bring. They have fulfilled the first portion of the summer program, and are eight days away from potentially executing the second.
If they must adhere to this way of doing things, fingers crossed for another Alonso or Azpilicueta. But the odds are ever not in our favour.