Chelsea: Playing the waiting game with Bakayoko will pay off
Chelsea is seemingly not going to sell Tiemoue Bakayoko outright this summer. While this may anger many, it’ll pay off in the long run.
Over the past few years, a lot of emphasis has been put on smart business in west London. With Marina Granovskaia at the helm, Chelsea has made some of the best deals imaginable, but it has also made some woeful ones. However, even when the Blues slip up, they always do a wonderful job by somehow making things right again. Tiemoue Bakayoko is one of the examples of a transfer that simply didn’t work out for the Blues. His time at Chelsea is largely forgettable, with more people choosing to remember his large transfer fee instead.
The former Monaco man is a shell of his former self, but Bakayoko still has a lot to offer a team outside of England. As things stood, it looked like Granovskaia and the Chelsea board would only recoup a fraction of the £40 million they paid for the 25-year-old back in 2017; recent reports suggest otherwise. Bakayoko is now looking to take a significant pay cut to move to Milan, where the Blues could collect around £32 million if the Italians choose to buy him after a season on loan.
The French midfielder made the move to Chelsea in 2017 after being a vital part of Monaco’s UCL semifinal and Ligue One winning side. Then boss Antonio Conte hoped Bakayoko would slot in next to N’Golo Kante in midfield, taking on the role Nemanja Matic occupied the year prior. Bakayoko offered more pace than Matic; along with being years younger. Unfortunately, things simply didn’t work out as the defensive midfielder struggled to adapt to the physicality of the Premier League.
He’s spent every season since out on loan—first at AC Milan and then most recently back at Monaco. After his former club was unable to find the funds to purchase Bakayoko, it was announced he’d be coming back to Cobham. It appears as though his stay will be short and he’ll make the switch back to the Italian giants where he enjoyed so much success throughout the 2018/19 season. By the end of his Chelsea career, he will undoubtedly have made more appearances in a Milan shirt than his 43 in a Blues uniform.
In a post-Coronavirus market, it seemed as if the Blues would never be able to make up the money due to teams finding it harder and harder to spend and players being sold cheaper. Alas, waiting will seemingly pay off. Instead of demanding the money right away in a deprived market, Chelsea is deferring the payment to the 2021/22 season in the form of an option to buy. The market will likely become more normal in a year’s time and that’s when the Blues will look to cash in on Bakayoko.
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In the end, even though Chelsea is looking to make a quick buck now to fund its summer splurge, waiting will benefit the board. Holding on to Bakayoko for another season will inevitable earn the Blues back all the money they spent on the midfielder three years ago—marking another big business victory by Granovskaia.