Danny Drinkwater and the “sliding doors”: Chelsea’s £34,000 per minute man

Chelsea are compensating Danny Drinkwater quite handsomely for absolutely stalling his football career. That can’t be the final word on him, can it?

Danny Drinkwater moved to Chelsea back in 2017 in a “sliding doors” moment that has seen his football career dropped off a cliff whilst his bank balance has hit an interstellar thermal. Maurizio Sarri clearly doesn’t rate the midfielder, and with a transfer window on the horizon, his future in SW6 is coming under increasing scrutiny.

It’s not difficult to say who came out worst on the deadline day deal just 18 months ago: the two clubs involved or the player himself. Chelsea paid £34 million for the Leicester City Premier League winner, who at the time was valued around £8.1 million. Drinkwater has featured in just 1,181 minutes of football. Each of those minutes on the field of play has come at a cost of £28,789 for the Blues, and that’s just including the transfer fee in the calculation.

Drinkwater’s time at Chelsea didn’t start well – he arrived injured – and it has certainly not improved much since. Antonio Conte, in Double-D’s first season, utilised him sporadically, most notably in the FA Cup. But this season Maurizio Sarri has afforded him just a couple of spots on the substitutes bench.

It’s a shame for the player. He arrived with a good pedigree, playing alongside N’golo Kante in that freakish Leicester City stroll to the title in 2016. To see his career nosedive is disappointing, to say the least. In fairness, though, he’s remained positive as far as we can tell, goes to training, looks happy sitting behind the dug-out and uses social media to support those that do play. In all, a good professional.

Perhaps in some ways it’s not all bad news for the midfielder who began his footballing life at Manchester United’s academy. He does pick up a healthy salary. Of course, that’s not to lay any of the blame for that on him. It’s simply market forces that pay those lucky enough to be involved in the beautiful game wages that, on the surface, seem extreme but are proportionate in their world. No doubt he would sooner be playing, though.

Of course, we don’t know what individual footballers earn but the media folk do like to speculate. Last summer, the Express put Drinkwater on £90,000 per week. He’s now been at Chelsea for 66 weeks. That’s just under £6,000,000. So, excluding medical expenses, Chelsea have shelled out £40,000,000 on a player who has scored just one goal and played a cumulative 13 full games. The cost has now risen to £33,869 per minute played.

From Chelsea’s perspective, it gets worse. His current contract doesn’t end until June 2022. That’s around 182 weeks and another £16.4 million.

You have to wonder what it is Maurizio Sarri doesn’t see in the player to not consider giving him a shot at making the cut. Chelsea’s midfield appears sorted as far as Sarri is concerned, but to others, it looks like a work in progress. That Drinkwater failed to make the squad for the Europa League ties and that he’s behind Ruben Loftus-Cheek in the pecking order would suggest his time at Chelsea is all but over.

Where he goes next is anyone’s guess, but a permanent move seems unlikely. The level of team that would take him would not be interested in covering Chelsea’s financial losses or his relatively high salary. A loan move appears the only option. Likely destinations are Sunday’s visitors to Stamford Bridge, Fulham, or maybe a move across London to West Ham.

You can’t help but wonder where Drinkwater would be now if he’d chosen the other sliding door” option of staying put at Leicester. During his final season there he not only won a Premier League title but was on the brink of getting a regular spot in the England squad. Since moving to London, nothing.

At 28, it will be incredibly sad if his football career stagnates and dies just because he chose to get on the wrong tube train.