Chelsea: Transfer rumors overlook Jeremie Boga, who does what Blues need

The January transfer window is no more a time for well-considered transfer rumours than it is for smart business. That Jeremie Boga did not spend any time in the rumour mill is another scoop of silliness in the season.

Jeremie Boga was no more or less than available than any other player Chelsea were linked with last month. Sassuolo were as likely to part with him as any of the clubs who own any of the players that Chelsea were always just… on… the verge… of signing… were. But despite Boga excelling in Serie A in some of the exact attributes Chelsea need, his reputation from his time at Cobham and his £3 million buyback clause, his name never popped up.

Boga leads Serie A with 93 successful dribbles. No other player in the league has even attempted that many. Only two Premier League players have attempted or completed as many as Boga: Adama Traore and Wilfried Zaha. Boga’s dribble-to-dispossession ratio of 2.9 would have him behind only Traore; and only Mateo Kovacic, Traore and Emiliano Buendia have a success rate better than Boga’s 64%.

Given how well his raw numbers stack up to the Premier League’s best dribblers, it’s no surprise SmarterScout models him in the 99th percentile of dribblers and 86th percentile for ball retention in the league. That is the same ball retention rating as once and future rumour bait Jadon Sancho, and well above Sancho’s 70-80th percentile placement for dribbling.

As we wrote about a few weeks ago, Mateo Kovacic is Chelsea’s best dribbler. But since he is a midfielder, most of his dribbles are in the middle third – they help Chelsea transition to offence but seldom do they directly lead to scoring chances.

Using the same back-of-the-napkin analysis we did for Kovacic, Boga completed 34 dribbles in the four games in which he had the most. Sassuolo won one of those matches, drew two and lost one.

In a scoreless draw against AC Milan, Sassuolo had 50% possession and Boga completed 11 dribbles, with five in the final third. Sassuolo has 62-63% in the other three games. Drawing 2-2 to Lecce, Boga had 10 dribbles – nine in the final third; two of seven dribbles in the final third while defeating SPAL; and three of six in a defeat to Udinese. Even against better teams like Inter Milan, Juventus and Atalanta he had three or more dribbles per game.

Serie A traditionally has the tightest defences of the top five leagues in Europe, so much so that Cristiano Ronaldo told Romelu Lukaku that it is the hardest league to score.

Italian football prizes well-structured and intensely disciplined defensive units (Exhibit A: any team managed by Antonio Conte). If Boga can penetrate those defences regularly with the ball at his feet while on a midtable team, he should be under consideration at Chelsea as they look for ways to break out of their U-shaped passing pattern dictated by their opponents’ low block. His dribbling ability combined with his ball retention would be ideal for Chelsea’s possession-oriented tactics while giving them the thrust they have lacked in too many games.

The Blues have spent much of this season and all of last season trying to find ways through the defensive lines. Their current wingers have not been able to dribble into the block enough to force the defensive line back and create space for a pass within the penalty area. Without players to run onto the ball behind the lines, their only option is to gently probe the lines and get repulsed, and then send in a cross and hope it hits somebody.

We have no problem boasting around here, as an individual or as a site or as an individual on behalf of the site. And we have no problem with it because, as both our loyal readers know, we are often exactly right about everything. Sometimes it may take a bit to come to fruition, but we always have the receipts.

In 2017, several of our writers predicted Jeremie Boga would be the surprise star of the season. They were wrong. Two weeks after we published that article, Chelsea loaned Boga to Birmingham City. But the seeds of their eventual vindication were there. Boga finished the season with the fifth-most successful dribbles in the Championship. League leader? Adama Traore, with a ludicrous 243.

Boga was fifth in Serie A for dribbles last season, but it was still a low-key affair. This season, though, is his breakthrough, as he has added the flair and “big moment” dribbles to go with his consistency, technical abilities and creativity.

Jeremie Boga has the skillset Chelsea will have to pay for, and will probably pay too much for. At £3 million, activating his release clause should be the most obvious decision of the summer. His estimated transfer value is already 3-4 times that, and his actual value would probably be even more.

Yet even at his market rate he would still be a bargain compared to the more marquee options Chelsea are continually linked with.