Wesley Fofana – 7/10
The Fofana signing is a tricky one. He’s a very good centerback and he’s still only 21. His reading of the game is superb, in fact, he leads the Premier League this season with 4.5 interceptions per game, so there’s no question about his quality. Chelsea also needed to replace Christensen so even after securing the services of the Senegal captain, Chelsea still needed to bring another centerhalf through the door. From that standpoint, Fofana is a very good signing.
However, Fofana is injury-prone, and in fact, played only seven games last season. This is not to say that he cannot be fit for extended periods of time for CFC, however, the risk is too great when you consider the money spent. This is obviously not a knock on Fofana, but the question is being asked to the board. At €82.5M, how likely is he to play 32 out of 38 league games? That cannot be answered now obviously. Chelsea could have searched outside England to find a CB that is not as injury prone and would definitely not have cost €83M but they chose not to. Fofana’s success is likely going to be determined by how long he can stay fit per season.
Denis Zakaria – 7.5/10
Zakaria came in on transfer deadline day in a loan deal with an option to buy. If Zakaria does well enough for the Blues, they’d pay €30M to Juventus to keep him permanently. Chelsea IS in need of depth at central midfielder and Zakaria is clearly a very good player. However, Chelsea has several players more like Zakaria, and less like Jorginho, and they needed someone more like Jorginho at the club so that Jorginho can be rested and he doesn’t have to play three games per week every week out of necessity.
Chelsea has sold Billy Gilmour and loaned out Ethan Ampadu. They only had Jorginho, N’Golo Kante, Mateo Kovacic, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, and Conor Gallagher to go into the season with before the arrival of Zakaria. That looks like a lot of options until you remember that Kante has not had consistent runs of games due to recurring injuries; Loftus-Cheek is a prime candidate for right wingback backup, and Gallagher is not a holding midfielder. This leaves Jorginho and Kovacic who would be the more realistic options for the pivot, so from that standpoint, the addition of Zakaria is a very good one indeed.