Chelsea FC announced this weekend that young midfielder Cesare Casadei has departed to Torino after spending 2.5 years with the Blues. Casadei arrived as a highly touted youngster from Inter Milan in 2022 and had many Chelsea supporters wondering if they had found the next great Italian midfielder that could follow in the footsteps of Roberto Di Matteo and Jorginho in lifting trophies at Stamford Bridge.
Instead, Casadei was sent on successive loans to a Reading club that suffered relegation from EFL League One and then to Leicester where he made 22 league appearances for the Championship winning side. His play at Leicester had Blues fans hopeful that he would stake a claim in the Chelsea midfield but instead has made just 17 appearances for the Blues in his time here.
Some of these struggles to stake a claim had to do with the simple fact that Chelsea have a very crowded midfield at the moment with the likes of Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, and of course Cole Palmer having very firm grips on regular starting roles in central midfield. While that can be attributed as a factor, the bigger issue is that Casadei just may not have been good enough.
Fans can call out a lack of opportunities and some have gone so far as to compare his situation with Kevin De Bruyne’s but there was no famous clash with Mauricio Pochettino or Enzo Maresca that has held him back. Now with his departure to Torino for the same fee that Chelsea paid for him in 2022 (€13 million), he will get a chance to prove that he was worth the original hype around him.
Chelsea also included a 25% sell on clause so there is some financial benefit if he does become a world class player but a player of that caliber would be worth much more than a simple sell on clause. The question now becomes was this a failure by Casadei or does it call in to question the whole Clearlake Capital approach to squad building.
Clearlake has found some hidden gems in Cole Palmer and potentially Nicolas Jackson when is he in goalscoring form, but there have been plenty of missteps along the way as well. Some are much more expensive than the €13m spent on Casadei like the €45m spent on Axel Disasi who is also on his way out of the club.
The end result is that the club does not seem to have much of a transfer policy beyond spending lots of money on young players and seeing who sticks around and who doesn’t. It feels like, to use the American baseball term, Chelsea are trying to build a farm system rather than a football squad.
The Casadei departure in one measure is a success because the Blues didn’t lose any money on the transfer save for the wages paid to him while he was at the club. There is also the sell on clause which could end up being a nice windfall for the club if he develops further so the accountants will be happy with that.
On the pitch however, it was a failure as the player did not live up to some lofty expectations and it could be said that he “wasted” two years of his career on different loans and not developing into a top player. It also opens the club up to criticism as many wonder what the point of all this is if the club still can’t beat top teams and make a meaningful title challenge. The Clearlake and Todd Boehly project is still in its relative infancy but the supporters are getting impatient and will need to see improvement and better outcomes in the transfer market and on the pitch.