Chelsea are able to take a detached perspective on the transfer window this summer. They are not missing out on anything good, as the Romelu Lukaku – Paulo Dybala situation is enough of a reminder of dramas gone by.
Every week brings new reminders of how fortunate Chelsea are to be excluded from this summer’s transfer window. More than anything else, the rumours and completed deals are weird. Not blockbuster, not realigning the financial or football foundations of the game, not overly banter. Just simply weird.
Among the most bizarre is one involving three ex-Chelsea men: Romelu Lukaku, Antonio Conte and Maurizio Sarri. Paulo Dybala’s role pushes the whole thing into the realm of Kafka.
For the second time in as many clubs, Romelu Lukaku is spurning Antonio Conte’s overt courtship. Conte wanted Lukaku to return to Chelsea from Everton, first to compete with or complement Diego Costa and then to replace Costa after the 2016/17 season. As he is doing now with Conte wanting him at Inter Milan, Lukaku is instead eyeing the bigger club on offer: first Manchester United, now Juventus.
Lukaku’s moves have more than a whiff of agent power, especially considering his rather odorific agent, Mino Raiola, who makes quite a living when not banned by various federations shuffling players for exorbitant fees and extortionate commissions between such clubs as Manchester United and Juventus.
The Belgian may have good reasons for wanting to leave Manchester United, but Juventus does not have much allure for him besides the name.
Of the many three-way contradictions between Maurizio Sarri’s words, #brand and reality are his perspective on strikers. For a manager who supposedly prizes free-flowing, vertical, one-touch football while eschewing aerial crosses into the box, he certainly has a predilection for heavy-set strikers with a leaden touch. Lukaku is one of the few players who can make Gonzalo Higuain look like Alvaro Morata, at least in terms of body type. Lukaku’s body type and skill set are much better suited for the manager who more openly wants him, Antonio Conte.
In a similarly contradiction-riddled interview with Sky Sports, Kristof Terreur said:
"It depends on what Sarri wants. The feeling in Italy is that he wants to play [Lukaku] more on the left side. I do not know what Sarri is up to but he likes to play with a striker, whether that is a false nine or a deep striker. I do not know if Lukaku will do what Sarri expects of him but he has played a lot for United on the wings."
We’ll have to check our notes, but we have reason to believe Juventus already have a forward who plays on the left who is not known to step aside for anyone. And if Lukaku does not do what Sarri expects of him, as Terreur muses, Chelsea fans know how the season will go for all involved.
Paulo Dybala is caught up in the whole mess of Sarri’s rigid demands for obedience to his rigid ways. Dybala can be world-class as a No. 10 or shadow striker, neither of which have much of a role in Maurizio Sarri’s 4-3-3. Fabrizio Romano, in the same article, speculates Sarri wants to try Dybala in a new role.
Of course, Dybala and Sarri have not spoken yet, which bodes very poorly for Dybala. As Chelsea learned last year with players like Willian and David Luiz, the players who nab first dibbs on sycophancy enjoy a prime place in the lineup all season.
There are only so many roles to go around, and Sarri will not concern himself if Dybala doesn’t align with one of those roles. Dybala can look forward to another season on the bench or being slated as too selfish if Sarri does turn to him to help Cristiano Ronaldo win games. Sarri could end up treating Paulo Dybala the way he probably wanted to treat N’Golo Kante: marginalize and ultimately off-load a world-class player in sacrifice (in the truest use of the word) to “his” “system.”
Every aspect of this deal makes it look like everyone is jamming words in players’ mouths and desires in their hearts, without actually finding out what they want.
The Juventus board may want Romelu Lukaku to deny him to Inter, and Lukaku’s agent is eager to oblige. Sarri does not see the point in keeping Dybala and the Juventus board are as high on Sarri’s second-hand smoke as Chelsea’s board was throughout last season. Dybala has apparently always wanted to play in La Liga after his time in Serie A, but he is being pressured into moving to Manchester United to satisfy everyone else’s desires except his own. Well, almost everyone. Antonio Conte is being denied his, at least as far as his preferred striker goes.
Romelu Lukaku might be wondering around now how much simpler things could have been had he stayed at Chelsea instead of transferring to Everton in 2014 when the Blues bought Diego Costa. Lukaku left when Jose Mourinho was still in charge, and Mourinho’s praise for Kurt Zouma this week, the choppy progression of Chelsea’s strikers, Antonio Conte’s persistent desire to work with him and the overall evolution of the club’s approach to in-house development could have culminated in Lukaku’s prime playing years.
But for the present, Chelsea don’t need a part of any of this. If they could do business this window, some of the drama would touch them at least in rumour form, even if they could withstand the temptation to do anything silly.
Perhaps their saving grace is that they are still not big enough in Mino Raiola’s eyes to be worth the machinations for a hefty payday.