Chelsea isn’t making a mistake letting Marc Guehi go

Recently, David Ornstein of The Athletic dropped a bombshell for Chelsea supports by tweeting about Marc Guehi. According to his tweet, “Crystal Palace are close to completing a permanent deal for Chelsea defender Marc Guehi. The 21-year-old is having his medical today ahead of penning a five-year deal”.

This news has shocked every Chelsea fan and has made them question the board’s decision. Is this a bad deal or a good deal for the club?

Marc Guehi is a very highly rated, talented academy player for which every Chelsea fan had huge expectations to break into the first team this season. The young English defender had an amazing loan spell in the Championship with Swansea City. His valuable contributions in the center of the defense helped them reach the Championship play-off final where they fell at the final hurdle. But after that final one thing was certain, that he had proved his worth in the English second division.

Many people were expecting him to now either get a loan to a Premier League team or be a part of the first team where he would be behind the likes of Cesar Azpilicueta, Andreas Christensen, Antonio Rudiger, Thiago Silva, and Kurt Zouma.

But this sudden news of him leaving the club permanently doesn’t sit well. I’m very disappointed with this news just like every other Chelsea fan. But this deal does not mean it’s all doom and gloom for Chelsea Football Club. Marc Guehi, who is currently training with the first-team squad had “turned down a contract offer from Chelsea earlier this year and wasn’t overly keen to head out on another loan” according to Adam Newson.

With Guehi not committing his future to the club, the decision to cash in on him when his market value is high feels like the right choice. It is also reported that the offer provided by Crystal Palace was too good to turn down for the Blues board. This makes me believe that the offer given must be in the range of £15-20 million.

With all that money upfront, Chelsea have managed to insert a sell-on clause that benefits the club financially in the future as a certain chunk of the future transfer fee will be given to the Blues. With that sell-on clause, they have added a matching rights clause in the deal which gives Chelsea the first right to match any offer that is accepted by Crystal Palace in the future. After considering all of this in Guehi’s permanent deal, this seems like a win-win situation for the West London club. If the English defender turns out to be world-class as many fans expect then Chelsea would have the first right to buy him back without entering any sort of bidding war. Just to remind people, a similar deal was done for Nathan Ake who now plays for Manchester City.

This move doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Marc Guehi’s Chelsea career. With the club getting so many benefits, this deal should be taken positively. Getting a straight fee anywhere in the region of £15-20 million will help the club in their bid to sign a world-class striker, but this will not be the end of it.

Nizaar Kinsella expects few more youngsters to leave Chelsea this summer, which will be concerning but if the board includes the option of buying back the players in the future then this could turn out to be a masterstroke from Chelsea board.