Chelsea preparing final tranche of loans as deadline day approaches

Chelsea’s webmaster is an untapped source for loan rumours. Several players nominally still fighting for their place in the first-team are already listed on the loan page of the official website, confirming their likely if ostensibly uncertain fate.

With all the competing rumour mongers proclaiming their anonymous sources’ insights, a club’s official website is a decidedly unsexy place to go for hints about loans and transfers. Before things become official on the home page, the team pages can offer insight into what at least one actual insider – that is, someone who works within Stamford Bridge, if not privy to these conversations – thinks is about to happen to Chelsea’s fringe players.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Matt Miazga, Lucas Piazon, Tomas Kalas and Tammy Abraham are among the latest additions to the “On-Loan Players” page. Miazga spent the week linked with a move to Ligue 1, first to Caen and then to Nantes. The other four have not been in any substantial loan or transfer rumours so far, despite their varying prospects for staying at Chelsea this season.

Piazon and Kalas both deserve better than another year on loan. Kalas is a casualty of Chelsea’s surplus of centre-backs in the year they revert to a two centre-back formation (see also: Zouma, Kurt). The Blues simply do not have room for him, regardless of how they rate him.

But like Zouma, Kalas is past the age where he has anything to gain by being in the loan army. The club is just stringing him along, as they have since 2010. Fulham would love to have him permanently after two years on loan. Fulham is an ideal loan destination for a young Chelsea player, but can only take one Blue this season since they are back in the Premier League. Chelsea would be wasting that prime loan spot just as much as they are wasting Kalas’ time if they loan him back to the Cottagers.

Kalas’s Chelsea / Fulham teammate Lucas Piazon is in a similar situation. This season has everything set for him to ascend to the first team. In a year when Chelsea most need new wingers to replace an aging corps, he is a young winger with a proven record of success and growth. He has punched every ticket on his loan card, accumulating his minimum 150 games from Vitesse to Frankfurt to Reading to Fulham. If Chelsea do not have a place for the 24-year old in a year when Willian should be gone, Victor Moses is an uncertainty and Pedro is on the downslope, they never will. The Blues may be tempted to loan him to Fulham so as not to face him in the west London derbies, but for the same reasons as Kalas, they should not.

The most depressing prospective addition to the loan army, though, is Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Chelsea have spent as much time crippling this player’s development as they have promoting him as the Next Great One of Cobham.

Like Piazon, if this year is not the divinely inspired opportunity for Loftus-Cheek to succeed as a Blue, there never will be one. The Blues have one midfield spot up for grabs this season, and that spot is near perfect for Loftus-Cheek’s skill set. Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Ross Barkley should be competing all season for that role, with Cesc Fabregas coming in when Chelsea need their playmaker to unlock a tightly-packed defensive opponent.

Loftus-Cheek is coming off a successful loan season at Crystal Palace and an impressive World Cup run for England. If he has anything left to prove, a loan is not the place for him to prove it. The first team – competing in the Premier League, Europa League and domestic cups – is. And if this is not the year, Chelsea need to admit and apologize for their mistake and send him where he can be the player they always told us he can be. Somewhere, someday, he and Jack Wilshire can have a pint and commiserate about life as the English hope of a London club.

The knock-on consequence of loaning Loftus-Cheek and Piazon is how it confirms Willian’s place in the side, barring the long shot swap deal for Anthony Martial. With Loftus-Cheek in the mix at central midfield, Ross Barkley could move forward to the wing. If Loftus-Cheek leaves Barkley will likely only play midfield, and without Piazon as an option, the Blues will need to keep Willian among their top two right wing options.

Loftus-Cheek’s best hope may lie with the homegrown rule. Chelsea are at their quota of non-homegrown players. While Maurizio Sarri muses about some mystical midfielder he would like to sign, unless that midfielder is homegrown the Blues cannot buy him without sending another player out of the squad. Hopefully Sarri will see something of that mystique in Loftus-Cheek in the remaining days and keep him around.

A loan for Tammy Abraham would be the best option for him. Despite the grumblings around Alvaro Morata this summer, Morata will remain Chelsea’s top striker, their No. 9, if you will, despite him now being the No. 29. Abraham would be, at best, fighting for third on the depth chart behind Olivier Giroud and Michy Batshuayi. Abraham needs as much top-tier playing time as he can get. A Premier League would greatly benefit him.

Chelsea usually make more signings than transfers out in the final days of the window. This does not bode well for Kalas, Piazon or Loftus-Cheek. They may be faced with the spectacle of seeing Chelsea announce some anonymous player on Thursday while they take the train to yet another loan destination.