Chelsea: Factors beyond his control doomed Tiemoue Bakayoko as a Blue

Tiemoue Bakayoko’s fall from grace has been a swift one. Bakayoko is, in many ways of victim of circumstance and – like so many others – Thibaut Courtois.

Tiemoue made a name for himself as a crucial piece of Monaco’s title-winning side in 2016/17 at age 22, securing a move to Chelsea the following summer. Originally considered the heir apparent to Nemanja Matic in Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3, it quickly became clear Bakayoko was nowhere near ready to take on such a heavy burden. With a poor first touch and the type of general gawkiness usually reserved for newly pubescent teenagers, he faded into obscurity as the season progressed.

When summer arrived, Chelsea’s chronic phobia of managerial stability reared its ugly head once again. Antonio Conte was out, Maurizio Sarri was in. (If only it had actually been that simple…) As is the case with any managerial upheaval, many players’ futures were thrown into the cauldron of media conjecture. Was it time for Eden Hazard to move on? Was Thibaut Courtois already in Madrid? Would N’golo Kante be smiling and riding his bike down the Champs-Elysees next season?

Almost every first team player was linked with some sort of move away. Bakayoko, however, seemed set to stay at the club. With Chelsea moving from a two-man midfield to a three-man system, it looked like he could earn some meaningful minutes somewhere within the four competitions the club was set to compete in.

Enter Thibaut Courtois. Or rather, exit.

As part of his (very successful) campaign to burn any and all bridges with the club, Courtois almost single-handedly forced his way to Real Madrid, prompting a series of repercussions for Chelsea. While the deal looked to be a dismal one for Chelsea both on the pitch and in the accounting ledgers, Madrid threw Chelsea a bone by offering Mateo Kovacic on a one-year loan.

With the surprise arrival of Kovacic, Bakayoko was suddenly deemed surplus to requirements. Sarri had stated he preferred to keep a small squad, so it was inevitable that there would be some last-minute loan deals. But Bakayoko’s loan to AC Milan still raised eyebrows. Despite being present for the entirety of preseason training and Sarri’s need for extra midfield depth, Sarri still didn’t see the Frenchman as part of his plans moving forward.

To add to the ignominy of being relegated to the club’s loan army, the deal included an option to buy for Milan. The clause was reportedly slightly less expensive than what Chelsea originally paid Monaco a year before, adding insult to… insult.

That means one of two things: a) Chelsea were so confident he was useless they would happily sell him no matter how good he was at Milan, or b) including a reasonably priced option to buy was the only way they could goad another top-level club into taking him (and likely a good chunk of his wages) for the season.

Either way, it seemed to spell doom for Bakayoko’s Chelsea career.

All of those details have been well-worn in Chelsea Twitter and beyond, but his sojourn in Italy has been an underreported train wreck. Ostensibly, he went to Milan with the intention of earning more minutes than he would at Chelsea. In the seven Serie A matches since his arrival, he’s made four appearances – all off the bench – for a total of 82 minutes. His first appearance came with Milan up 1-2 against Napoli, only for the Rossoneri to lose 3-2. Manager Gennaro Gattuso, himself a formidable midfielder in his day, roasted Bakayoko Michael Scott-style after the defeat.

"Bakayoko has to learn how to get the ball. We must work correctly. It will not be easy. One week is not enough to remove the defects of a player. I would have preferred to be managing older, more experienced club players. – Goal"

More recently, he’s softened his tone, if not his message.

"Bakayoko needs to be helped, as he is struggling. The tactics haven’t been drilled into his head yet and evidently it’s my fault, we need to do more with him in training. He has been here for two months and we haven’t yet been able to get him to understand the movements. It is our duty to improve him as a player, because he does have a lot of quality and we’re not finding that yet. – Goal"

Clearly, things could be going better at the San Siro. His case isn’t helped by Milan going undefeated since that opening match against Napoli. Gattuso has found a winning formula, and Bakayoko is anything but a vital ingredient at the moment.

Crucially, though, he looks to be a guaranteed starter in Milan’s Europa League group stage matches so far, something that wouldn’t necessarily be the case if he’d stayed at Chelsea. Victories over F91 Dudelange and Olympiacos are hardly career-defining moments for someone who has already played in a Champions League semifinal, but it’s something to build on.

From Chelsea’s perspective, what constitutes a “successful” loan for Bakayoko will be difficult. Do Chelsea want him to maintain a low profile so they can reassess him next summer, or are they hoping to cash in if he can show some value? Most likely, Marina Granovskaia and the rest of the board are just as unsure as anyone. Hopefully they have a subscription to BR Live.

The final factor that will make or break Tiemoue Bakayoko’s future at Chelsea is the most important one of all: Maurizio Sarri. In its current form, Sarri’s 4-3-3 doesn’t have room for a player of Bakayoko’s ilk. He isn’t an obvious fit for any of Jorginho, Kante, or Kovacic’s. If anything, the current threesome’s biggest weakness is its lack of goalscoring ability, and god bless anyone who can convince me the answer to that issue is Bakayoko.

His only real chance of finding a way into the team would be if Sarri decides to tweak his formation to become slightly more defensive, which seems about as likely as seeing a pro-Courtois banner hanging in the Shed End.

By almost any metric, the writing seems to be on the wall for Bakayoko’s Chelsea career. Fortunately for him, there are plenty of other clubs that would happily take a flyer on him. Given that he’s still only 24, he has plenty of time to develop into a top-class player. European football is littered with players who didn’t quite make it at the “big” clubs, and Chelsea certainly have a record of recycling promising players back into the transfer market.

Like Felipe Luiz, Loic Remy, and Juan Cuadrado before him, it seems like Chelsea will be but one stop along what will hopefully be a long and successful career.

That said, watch him become the next Clarence Seedorf at Milan, and I’ll look like an idiot for all of eternity.