Chelsea were not able to register any new players this summer and they still had a better window than most of their rivals. Marina Granovskaia expertly guided the club to maximize value and trim the bloat.
Chelsea’s transfer and loan deals over the last few years have left plenty to be desired. Various managers have asked for top shelf players only to receive back-up options who never stood a chance of making it as Blues, and never did. However, without the ability to buy new players, the club were precluded from making any new mistakes. Instead, Marina Granovskaia oversaw one of the smartest transfer windows the club have had in some time.
1. Maximizing transfer fee for Eden Hazard
Everyone knew the end was in sight for Eden Hazard’s career as a Blue. He entered the 2018/19 season with two years left on his contract. He had already been linked with Real Madrid on and off for years, and not spuriously – his flirtations with Los Blancos were never subtle. Zinedine Zidane’s departure from Real bought Chelsea some time, but his return restarted the original countdown.
Real Madrid held most of the leverage heading into the summer window. They wanted the move. The player wanted the move. If the Blues couldn’t reach an agreement, they would lose him for free next summer. Whereas Chelsea may have held off selling Hazard last summer on the premise of making a deep run in Europe (albeit the Europa League), there was little such fodder for discussions of opportunity heading into a season with a transfer ban, a crop of young players and another new manager.
Real Madrid could have named just about any price, and a weak Chelsea could have wearily accepted on the premise that it was better than the nothing they would get in a year’s time.
Instead, Marina Granovskaia finagled around £90 million up front for the transfer fee, with bonuses that could bring Chelsea’s income towards £130 million.
Hazard was Chelsea’s most valuable player in football and financial terms for the last few seasons, and never more than last season. He had his highest offensive output in the Premier League – a testament to his selfless “selfishness” – helping preserve Chelsea’s place in the top four while lending a hand to the Europa League title.
Chelsea will get what they deserved for Hazard, but that was far from assured until Marina Granovskaia made it so.
2. Selling David Luiz at the deadline
Marina Granovskaia and the Chelsea board made one mistake this summer. They violated a nonsensical but long-held rule to offer David Luiz, age 32, a two-year contract. John Terry, Frank Lampard, Didier Drogba, Ashley Cole and many other players more reliable and more important than Luiz all had their requests for multi-year extensions in their 30s denied.
Luiz, though, in true-to-self fashion, provided a chance for the club to annul this anomaly.
In the final days of the transfer window, Luiz went from the subject of far-flung rumours to Arsenal’s training ground in near-record time.
While the club took a large financial loss on Luiz, selling him for about £25 million less than they paid for him on deadline day three years ago, they sent a powerful message of support for Frank Lampard: If you and the manager don’t want you here, the board will see to it that you’re not here.
Earlier iterations of Granovskaia and the board may have settled for a loan to get Luiz out of Cobham while keeping him on the books for a better price next summer. But they knew that they had already inflated his value with the two-year deal, and would not have a suitor as willing, eager and desperate as Arsenal for an error-prone, locker room-poisoning centreback.
Any money would have been good money for Luiz. Ending his affiliation with the club was strategic communications at its finest. All Chelsea players young and old now know exactly what it means and what it will take to be part of this club.
Whereas last season she was Sarri’s enabler, this time around Granovskaia was Lampard’s enforcer, and she was brilliant in this deal.
3. Strong-arming Juventus to “buy” Maurizio Sarri
Few managers will ever live the charmed life Maurizio Sarri enjoyed at Chelsea FC. He entered his tenure with the club buying the one player he requested by name, at a price that reflected Sarri’s dependence on this player and the connivance of the selling chairman, Aurelio De Laurentiis. The club granted Sarri another bloated by-name request in January by bringing in Gonzalo Higuain on loan. Chelsea quietly tolerated Maurizio Sarri insulting his two best players, casually dismissing the fans and petulantly disgracing himself at Wembley Stadium en route to the team winning him a Europa League title.
But two shapes hovered on the horizon. One, a storm cloud, in the form of the transfer ban. The other, a shining sun in the form of the most desirable job in Italian football: managing Juventus. As soon as these approached Stamford Bridge, Sarri wanted no life in west London, no matter how temporarily charmed.
Chelsea had just lost their case against their previous manager for wrongful termination, and were preparing a £9 million check to Antonio Conte. Now they were in the unusual position of having a manager who wanted to leave.
They knew they would have to buy out Frank Lampard’s contract just as they were buying out Antonio Conte’s. Someone would have to pay for Maurizio Sarri’s early exit.
Like Hazard and Real Madrid, Juventus had all the leverage. Sarri wanted the move. At the club level Chelsea were ambivalent, at best, about keeping him. Many fans wanted him gone. Many players, especially those under the age of 25, knew they had no future at a Chelsea under Sarri. If those players left, Chelsea would be on the hook for several more high-spending transfer windows.
But like the Hazard situation, Granovskaia made Juventus pay for what everyone involved wanted.
Marina Granovskaia did more for Maurizio Sarri than anyone else in his football career. By hiring him at Chelsea she gave him the platform he craved but did not deserve. With Chelsea and players like Eden Hazard, N’Golo Kante, Pedro and Kepa Arrizabalaga he could win a European cup and puff his way into contention for the Juventus job.
Her 2018 investment in Sarri cost the club a lot of progress, prestige and a few players. She could have just cut her losses by letting him break his contract and taken the L on the whole smokey thing.
Instead, she balanced her own ledger by persuading Juventus to buy Sarri out of his contract when many Chelsea fans would have been happy to see him leave on a free. Some might even have chipped in for his plane ticket.
The money Juventus paid for Sarri accelerated Frank Lampard’s return to Stamford Bridge, and that will end up being worth even more than the few million pounds Juventus paid for their next short-term manager.
4. Cleaning out the loan army (somewhat)
Chelsea have about 25 players (give or take) out on loan to start the season. This is well below the levels reached in the last few seasons. At the peak of the Michael Emenalo-led loan madness there were up to 40 Blues-in-name-only (BINOs) scattered across Europe, with a few forgotten souls on loan in South America.
This summer the Blues sold eight players who had previously gone out on three or more loans.
Among these players were Tomas Kalas and Kenneth Omeruo, who were not only the longest-serving loan army veterans but were the longest-serving Chelsea FC senior players. This despite the fact that they combined for only four first-team appearances, and Kalas had all four.
Lucas Piazon is now the most tenured loan army player, and he is back on loan, this time at Rio Ave in LigaNOS. Before leaving for Portugal he signed an extension with Chelsea. Presumably the club think they will be able to receive more for him next summer with more years left on his contract than they were offered this season. Under no circumstances should anyone think the club have plans or even hopes for him at Stamford Bridge.
That seems to be the rationale for keeping some of the other loan army veterans under contract at Chelsea. Just because the Blues are changing their development and acquisition pipeline and are overhauling the loan system in the process doesn’t mean they are going to make clumsy financial decisions.
Chelsea are likely receiving more in cumulative loan fees for players like Piazon, Kenedy and Abdul Baba Rahman than they would from selling them this summer. Their time will come in a future cull, which is certain as the Blues look to restore a real sense of purpose to the loan army and reduce their need for it as a hedge against Financial Fair Play.
5. Confirming Atletico Madrid will buy Alvaro Morata
Chelsea loaned Alvaro Morata to Atletico Madrid in January, with a loan-to-buy clause that everyone knew Atletico would activate at some point. “At some point,” though, was not good enough for Marina Granovskaia.
Granovskaia played a game of chicken with all parties involved by threatening to recall Alvaro Morata this summer if Atletico did not agree to buy him. No one around Chelsea was beating the drum for Morata to return. Atletico did not want to lose their most productive striker. Morata must have been absolutely petrified at the prospect of returning to Stamford Bridge.
It was obvious Granovskaia was bluffing because no one, I mean absolutely no one, wanted this outcome. There weren’t even any other offers for Morata on the table. It’s not like Granovskaia could recall Morata and then flip him to another club to punish Atletico’s foolishness.
But bluffs are threats just the same, and Atletico blinked. While nothing much changes about the fee structure or the playing arrangements for this season, Chelsea now have a contact for Atletico to buy Alvaro Morata next summer for about £50 million.
He was already good as gone, but now he is certain to be off the books next summer – one less thing for Granovskaia to worry about as she resumes the business of buying new players.