Chelsea: Jadon Sancho should be the lowest priority use of £100 million

Chelsea wrapped up the Hakim Ziyech deal and it looks like Jadon Sancho is the next name on the list for next season’s reinforcements. But before Chelsea spend upwards of a cool £100 million on the young English winger, they should re-evaluate their priorities.

Jadon Sancho is, without a doubt, the next big thing. Coveted by some of the most powerful clubs in the world, he is the also shiniest new toy that Chelsea and their fans have set their sights on. The addition of Sancho would significantly strengthen any team, but it would also require some eye watering sums of money. The figures talked about are around £100 million or so in the transfer fee, plus another few million in agent fees, a whopping weekly wage and at least a half-decade commitment to a player who could be the next Lionel Messi / Cristiano Ronaldo / Neymar, or who could just as easily fail to live up to the hype.

But this is not all about Jadon Sancho. If Chelsea sign Sancho, it would be a coup. But it would also be negligence of the highest order if the club then sits on its hands and hopes the 19-year-old will be the solution to all the other problems with this squad.

The £150 million “warchest” might seem like a lot, but in today’s market and for the kind of players Chelsea hope to buy, it is a drop in the ocean. If more than two-thirds of this sum is allocated for the Sancho deal, it leaves a whole lot less to address the other problem areas.

It has been evident throughout the season that this squad is in urgent need of rebuilding. If the Blues were a house, it would be declared unsafe for habitation by now. Sancho can be the fancy new wireless connected lighting system, but when the front door doesn’t lock, the floorboards are infested with termites, and the bathroom stinks like a hobo took a dump in it, the lighting won’t do much good.

The powers-that-be at Chelsea need to take a step back, look at the current squad, then look at it again and then again until someone realizes they should fix the basic issues before splurging on Jadon Sancho.

Let’s start with the foundation: the goalkeeper. Kepa Arrizabalaga’s goose appears to be well and truly cooked. Chelsea will be lucky to recoup half of their investment, but more importantly, they will need to find a replacement keeper who is not allergic to clean sheets.

Then we have the left-back position, which is currently manned by a right-back and club captain, Cesar Azpilicueta.

At center-back as well, Andreas Christensen is built like a twig and Fikayo Tomori is young and raw, while Kurt Zouma may never reach his potential. Frank Lampard might be looking to add a battle-hardened veteran to whip his backline into shape.

Do you see where this is going yet? Buying a new goalkeeper and fixing the defence will easily cost £80-100 million or thereabouts, especially if Ben Chilwell is the primary target at left-back.

That’s not all. Chelsea also need a new striker to share the goalscoring burden with Tammy Abraham, and maybe another midfielder seeing how N’Golo Kante is becoming increasingly injury prone and Ruben Loftus-Cheek may not be the messiah we all hoped he would, and there is someone for whom “injury prone” is a tragic understatement.

There goes another £30-50 million, and now the “warchest” is empty.

Rebuilding the squad while adding Jadon Sancho will easily cost the club upwards of £300 million. Even if we assume the club has been saving the Eden Hazard money for a rainy day, Chelsea will not spend £300 million on players anymore.

Blinded by the light from Sancho’s brilliance, Chelsea need to snap out of this trance before it derails yet another season.