Chelsea’s Nathan Ake saga switched to a Jeremie Boga one

Just as Chelsea was rumored to be bringing Nathan Ake back, the steam is now picking up over Jeremie Boga making a return.

Jeremie Boga was all set to make it at Stamford Bridge. He was starting on opening day against Burnley when just a few minutes in, Gary Cahill received his marching orders (completely unjustly of course). Boga was sacrificed to solidify the team. Within a week, he had been loaned out to Birmingham City.

The next summer, Sassuolo snapped him up but Chelsea inserted a buyback clause into his contract, as was standard practice around that time with others such as Nathan Ake departing.

Chelsea was strongly linked to bringing Ake back all of January, but opted not to exercise that buy clause. Now, the Blues are once again linked to a former player with a buy back in Boga. One saga simply gave way to the next.

The rumors surrounding an Ake return were strong but ultimately never amounted to anything. There are some sources that will say Frank Lampard was uninterested in the move but ultimately it does not really matter why it did not happen.

Ake was, and is, not particularly needed back at Chelsea. The potential is there, but there is not enough that he is showing at Bournemouth to justify bringing him back.

Boga’s situation is similar but different. See, Chelsea is expected to lose both Willian and Pedro over the summer. The Blues could go for a big, expensive, high profile name to fill that gap or they could go for a high quality player on the cheap. Boga, thanks to his release clause, fits that perfectly.

But it is hard not to separate how similar these rumors are to Ake’s. Seemingly Lampard has returned and wants to activate every buy clause on every youth player that got away with an asterisk. It is an easy story to write and the players themselves will not even go out of the way to deny it.

Even among the Ake rumors, Boga’s rumors were popping up thanks to him “leaving the door open” to return. Boga, surely like Ake, said the exact thing most in this situation would say. “Yes Chelsea is great. Yes I am committed to my current club. Go back to Chelsea? Never say never”. Rinse, repeat, and let the views roll in.

Boga being a player the Blues could use does work in his favor, but for now it just seems hard to see him coming back to Chelsea after the entire Ake saga. That seemed like a sure thing until it was clear it was not, and that came far too late in the window.

Chelsea needs to be looking at new players and the papers know that. The Boga stuff is just the perfect intersection of those factors plus what is possible.

For now, it is probably safe to assume Boga is not returning, but stranger things have happened and he would hardly be the first Chelsea player to double dip in Blue.