Chelsea is a sudden flurry of activity at the end of the window. Though the names are good, late and scattershot signings cannot fix the window.
From the Community Shield on, Chelsea appears to have woken up from their post Jorginho/Maurizio Sarri celebratory food coma. Since then, the Blues have targeted and (at time of writing) nearly completed signings for Kepa Arrizabalaga and Mateo Kovacic (loan with an option to buy).
Add those names to the likes of Jorginho and (very generously) Robert Green and the window is looking pretty good. There is also chatter about a last minute move for Nabil Fekir or Anthony Martial. Put those names all in the in column and hold them up against the out column and this window appears to be a success.
But that is just it; the window only appears to be a success. And in the coming years, it will likely be viewed as such. It should not be. Because before the Community Shield, Chelsea only signed Jorginho and Green while they struggled for months to bring Maurizio Sarri to the club. This transfer window has been nothing short of a disaster and some late (but great) signings that are all over the place does not make up for the previous two months.
It is best to start all the way back when the window opened. Chelsea knew they did not want Antonio Conte to continue as manager. They knew Maurizio Sarri had a release clause and was willing to move to London. So what did the Blues do? Nothing. Not until preseason had already started, Conte had led training sessions, and the release clause for Sarri had long expired.
The solution was to sign Jorginho. At that point, a few days into the preseason, the window could have been called good for how far along it was. Jorginho is world class and walked (rightly) into the starting XI. But then Chelsea went quiet.
They wanted Alisson. The Blues knew Thibaut Courtois was likely to go and they were in the hunt for a replacement. But when Alisson went to Liverpool, the trail went completely cold. Chelsea was caught without a plan B and the only idea seemed to be to wait for Courtois’ return to see what would happen.
In the meantime, Chelsea was looking at former Sarri players to bring to the Blues. Namely, Gonzalo Higuain and Daniele Rugani. And though Sarri wanted the players, the board was less enthused. Higuain eventually went to AC Milan and Rugani stayed at Juventus. Again, Chelsea entered a holding pattern.
Fast forward to after the Community Shield and Chelsea still had no new signings (bar Green) since Jorginho. Preseason had been a disaster and only got worse when Courtois decided to disappear to force a move. Chelsea’s reaction to that dastardly act has been swift and surprisingly efficient. Kepa is on the way and Kovacic is coming to grease the wheels for a Courtois transfer. That not only replaces Courtois well, but it also gives Sarri the midfielder he wanted.
Both neither of those players were on Chelsea’s radar before the flight of Courtois. The Blues were not planning for them and only made them targets when it became convenient. That is also the main reason Chelsea acquired Jorginho. He was not a target nor was he linked until he helped the Sarri deal happen.
So if nothing crazy happens and Kepa signs alongside Kovacic, that would make only one signing all summer that the Blues actually wanted at the start of the summer. And that signing would be Sarri.
That is not a good transfer window. The targets are good but how they happened is not. A good transfer window is when a club determines their targets and gets those exact targets. This transfer window all the targets came of convenience among bigger situations.
Could this all be an offshoot of not having a technical director to point everyone in one direction? Most likely and the club is uninterested in changing that situation. This is the board that had equally scattershot approaches in the last four transfer windows. And though this time they have found more good targets than bad, the method is the same. And until the method changes, Chelsea is a coin flip away from another disaster window.