Chelsea: Ben Chilwell, Inter Milan and the aligning of the stars

The stars are aligning and the left back situation is becoming more and more clear for Chelsea ahead of the 2020/21 season.

Friday was an eventful day for those at Chelsea Football club and some with former ties to the team. Antonio Conte, Romelu Lukaku and Victor Moses ended their 2019/20 campaign with Inter Milan in the Europa League final. Further, rumors linking Kai Havertz, Ben Chilwell and Thiago Silva to Chelsea grew.

However, Friday also represented something much larger. Friday represented an aligning of stars for the future of Chelsea’s left back spot. Inter ended its campaign thus opening the doors to do deals before the season and Chilwell inched closer to a move to west London. The day could potentially be a catalyst for more moves in the coming months.

Blues supporters have begun getting impatient and although the feeling is rather unjustified, the events that transpired to end the work week will ease their nerves a bit. Inter’s season is now over and although the club has less than a month until its season starts back up again, there is plenty of time for transfers.

Here’s where things get a bit tricky: it’s anybody’s guess right now as to who the manager on the blue side of Milan will be next season. Conte is set to hold talks with the ownership next week, so a move for Chelsea’s Emerson could be in jeopardy. Luckily for the Blues, the man tipped to take the job—should Conte leave—is Massimiliano Allegri, who wanted Emerson when Allegri was manager at Juventus a few years prior.

Now, why is this significant in the grand scheme of things, who cares about Inter? Chelsea does.

The Blues are going to have a hard time raising funds from the players they’re offloading already. Emerson is one of the players thought to have already secured a move away from Stamford Bridge for around £23 million. It would also be a wonderful bit of business for the Blues to recoup almost the entirety of what they paid for the Brazilian born Italian international just a few windows ago.

Emerson’s departure also opens up a left back spot for Chilwell. Although all has been quiet on that front up until about a week ago, Chelsea has been working around the clock to get a deal done. As we all know, Marina Granovskaia does her best work from the shadows and this transfer would be no exception. Chilwell was originally quoted at £80 million from Leicester City, but it’s beginning to look more like Chelsea will pay £45-50 million.

Chilwell is the left back Frank Lampard has wanted from the off, so securing his services represents another sensational piece of business from the Blues board. Swapping Emerson for Chilwell would be a move that would please a majority of football fans around the world; Chelsea has a reason to be excited. This switch will also kick start what has already been a busy summer on the transfer front. The Blues have already brought in Hakim Ziyech, Timo Werner, Xavier Mbuyamba while Armando Broja, Ike Ugbo, Jamie Cumming and Trevoh Chalobah have all departed on loan. Willian, Pedro and Mario Pasalic have also left the club on permanent moves away.

All things considered, August 21 was a successful day for Chelsea. Inter is now open for business while Chilwell, Silva and Havertz inched closer to their moves to the Bridge. This is only the tip of the iceberg in what will eventually be looked at as the most exciting summer in recent history.