Ola Aina did not hesitate to go on loan to Torino when he saw he would not have a 2018/19 season at Chelsea, and Torino did not hesitate to convert his loan into a transfer. Aina may have helped matters this year, or he would have just muddled the picture even more.
Maurizio Sarri must have seen something he liked in Ola Aina. “He told me that I should go on loan, because I would not play,” Aina said of Chelsea’s single-season manager. That’s far more forthrightness – far more simple communication – than Sarri gave to some of Aina’s senior and more accomplished teammates in the summer of 2018. As a result, Aina had time to wait for the best opportunity to come his way and leave the Sarriball bench behind for a season in Serie A.
Aina said in an Instagram Live interview that the first few loan offers he received were from the Championship. Having already spent a season on loan at Hull City and having been told by Antonio Conte before his sacking that Aina would have a place in the team, Aina held out for a top tier offer.
He “wanted to play in the Premier League. When called I accepted immediately, because I would have the opportunity to play in Serie A, in important stadiums and against teams and players at that level level and especially in a team that wanted to go to the Europa League.”
Aina’s spells at Hull City and Torino paint him as a full-back in the Cesar Azpilicueta mould. At Hull City he played 30 games at right back and 13 at left back. In his nearly two seasons at Torino, he has played 17 games at right wingback, 29 at left wingback and a handful on each side as full-back.
One of the lingering unresolved positions at Chelsea the last two seasons – including the one in which Maurizio Sarri said he had no place for Aina – has been left back. Neither Marcos Alonso nor Emerson have won the spot outright, and once Reece James became healthy Azpilicueta bested both “natural” left backs.
Ola Aina could have overtaken Alonso and Emerson given his versatility and his roots in Chelsea’s academy. Aina came through Cobham with the rest of Chelsea’s youth-turned-first-team players, under the tutelage of Jody Morris and Joe Edwards. He could have been one more piece of the youth revolution and in-house promotion path.
Or he could have been one more underutilized option adding confusion and instability to the XI. He might be more like Marcos Alonso than Cesar Azpilicueta: an exceptional wing-back but only a passable left back. This could have found Aina joining Alonso out of the matchday squad during the days of the four-man defence, and then on the bench deputizing Alonso when Frank Lampard shifted to the 3-4-3. Aina might have been a utility or swing player for cup games and to cover injuries.
If Reece James could not displace Azpilicueta unless Azpilicueta was displacing Alonso and Emerson; and Alonso and Emerson could not displace someone who didn’t even play their position; and Alonso only had a steady run in a different formation or by default, what good would Ola Aina have done? He would have just added a layer of “Aina could not displace…”
While there is a chance Ola Aina could have solved Frank Lampard’s left back conundrum, it’s almost certain he would have come nowhere close to the 1,728 minutes he has played for Torino this season.
Aina is a starter in a top league, and that was his goal all along.
Antonio Conte and Maurizio Sarri both had valuable talks with Ola Aina. Conte gave Aina the confidence to believe he was ready for top-tier football, and Sarri gave him the honesty to pursue it elsewhere.
On the subject of Conte, Sarri and player relations, it’s worth nothing that Ola Aina did the same thing Cesc Fabregas and Gary Cahill did: without any prompting or self-interest, he praised Antonio Conte.
"He is really a great man. He is one of those coaches who takes care of every aspect with his staff and there is a lot to work on."
Had Chelsea kept Antonio Conte, perhaps they would have kept Ola Aina. Who knows how another year or two of Conte would have helped Aina’s career, let alone the club? But I’ll leave the what if’s for Travis.