Chelsea won the transfer window but still have plenty of baggage

Chelsea had a phenomenal window for the “in” column, but the out column left the Blues with a lot of baggage for the next two months.

Chelsea had the best transfer window in the Premier League this summer if not the world. Tottenham and Everton had good windows, but to say anyone but Chelsea is the clear winner is recency bias. Not only did Chelsea plug the major needs of a left back and a keeper, they also filled minor needs like centerback and a playmaker. Oh, and they also filled complete wants with a striker and a wunderkind. It is a mark of how good Chelsea’s window was that fans are still somewhat disappointed they missed out on a defensive midfielder.

The Blues achieved this, in part, due to the stockpile of money they had been sitting on due to the transfer ban and the Covid crisis keeping every other club out of the race for players (that is, unless they fired most of their staff including their beloved mascot). The club struck when no one else could and it filled up the “in” column.

That strength, however, was also a weakness. While Chelsea could go around buying players, few other clubs could. That meant that while the Blues could add to the squad, it was very difficult to nearly impossible to trim some of the fat on the periphery. Ultimately, that cost the club its chance at Declan Rice this window but now the Blues also have to cope with a bloated squad of high wage players that simply won’t see the pitch.

The biggest issue exists at left back and centerback. The Blues now have both of their first team left backs from last season as well as Ben Chilwell. For centerback, Antonio Rudiger deciding to stay, along with Fikayo Tomori rejecting a loan move, leaves the Blues with five players for two spots.

The left back issue can be alleviated, in part, if Emerson spends time on the wing like he has on occasion already this season. If anything, that may benefit him given he is a fine attacker and dribbler but his defense leaves something to be desired. But even that would be based on whether Frank Lampard and Marcos Alonso buried the hatchet after the West Brom bust up.

Centerback is probably a bigger issue. Lampard seemingly wants to settle on a more consistent pair at the back, or at the very least minimize his rotation. He has seemingly favored Thiago Silva since he has become available with Kurt Zouma and Andreas Christensen both coming in and out. Tomori has also played his fair share, but not really enough to justify keeping him around over a loan where he would play every match.

The Tomori situation is why the position will be tricky for Lampard. The young English defender needs minutes to develop, but it is hard to justify picking him over Silva and Zouma. Even Christensen, minus his red card, has had a very good season. If Lampard does straight pair for pair swaps it might work but otherwise Tomori is down the pecking order.

Then there is Rudiger who Lampard has had very little time for this season, in part because it looks as though the decision to keep Tomori as fourth choice came early. Does Rudiger find his way into Lampard’s plans now? On his day (before his injury issues last season), Rudiger would be a shoo in for the starting XI. If that Rudiger comes back, it will make Lampard’s choice at the back very difficult.

All of this is not even to mention players that would have been sold or loaned just to get them out of the way. As it stands, players like Victor Moses, Danny Drinkwater, Baba Rahman, Nathan Baxter, and Charly Musonda are still around the club. Some may get moves to Portugal or elsewhere yet since those windows are still open. Moses and maybe Musonda might find a first team spot only because Chelsea has no wingers. But someone like Drinkwater? That’s just wasted wages at the moment.

All of this is not to even mention the academy players that may have been set for a loan or a first team chance that now find the pipeline clogged. Again, there are still loan options available due to some windows remaining open, but now it will be a crunch to get things over the line.

None of this should detract at all from how excellent the window was for incoming signings. It merely makes things far more complicated than they should be for Lampard and the club paying wages to players that will barely see action. At the very least, the next transfer window is a mere two months away, but it remains to be seen if the buying ability of other clubs rebounds quickly enough for Chelsea to clear the deck.