Several top Premier League clubs have already made eye catching signings this summer, with more to follow in the coming weeks.
We take a slightly irreverent look at Chelsea’s competitors, discussing whether the signings they’ve made can help to bridge (guffaw) the gap in the 2015/16 season.
Man City
Raheem Sterling
Raheem Sterling is indisputably a deeply talented individual who, in the right circumstances, could become one of the brightest stars in world football. However, several questions persist: will Man City help him to realise his potential? Will he be able to avoid being papped smoking shisha? Will the HR department remember to get him a cake on his birthday?
The jury is out on the Citizens’ treatment of young English players. Quite rightly, people point to Scott Sinclair and Jack Rodwell when discussing the tangible manifestation of every young footballer’s worst nightmare; the unenticing prospect of accumulating vast sums of money in a dreamlike, responsibility-free sporting void.
Unfortunately for everyone though, City’s new signing is infinitely more talented than those two. This glaring, tangible disparity is currently being rather effectively drowned out by the incessant grumblings of deeply impartial ex-Liverpool players, who, by the way, are definitely not butthurt.
Sterling’s reputation has suffered a lot recently, mainly due to the unavoidable, relentless hate-gauntlet every remotely talented individual encounters when they have the temerity to leave Merseyside.
Regardless of what Jamie Carragher says about him; the way Sterling settles in at City could prove to be decisive in the title race this year. Whether Pellegrini has the vision or nous to conjure the winger’s best form is debatable though.
There are other key questions which need to be broached too. For instance, will the Argentinian’s terrifying, haunted gaze be detrimental to Sterling’s development? After all, the England international did consistently benefit from the reassuring contours of Brendan Rodgers’ big trustworthy face in the past.
Fabian Delph
Now this is more like it. Fabian Delph is just the sort of player who arrives at City, warms the bench for a couple of years and then retires to Sunderland with a wardrobe full of expensive but garish clothes which only really look right on an offseason jolly in Dubai.
A £40,000 orange suit jacket doesn’t quite hang the same when you’re slumped on a curb outside ‘Passion’ nightclub gently stomping in a shallow puddle of urine to try and clean sick off your trainers. Worst of all, Cattermole’s got his head stuck in the storm drain again. How Lee? Please tell me how this has happened again.
Delph may be holding down a place in England’s midfield at the moment, but if anything, that’s the most significant indicator that he is and always will be absolutely terrible at sport.
It’s hard to imagine City’s increasingly unfriendly looking squad members becoming buoyant at the prospect of occasionally training alongside yet another ineffectual Englishman next season.
Delph will inevitably struggle to impose himself at City and as such, his signing appears to be little more than a disdainful gesture towards those bloody awkward home-grown quotas. And they would have gotten away with it too it weren’t for those meddling bean counters at UEFA.
Manchester United
Bastian Schweinsteiger
We like Bastian Schweinsteiger. We like him because he used to be a great player. We like him because he has friendly eyes. We like him because he missed that penalty in the Champions League final and then yanked his shirt over his face in an abstract reverse homage to Beavis and Butthead.
Most of all, we like Schweinsteiger because he’s just a bit too old and will probably struggle to show his true quality in the Premier League.
The Bundesliga simply does not present the same relentless, soul contorting pressure that players face at top clubs in England. Asking a footballer who is not known for his combative skills to fling himself into a Premier League top-4 dogfight at the age of 32 is like asking me to stop shoehorning Beavis and Butthead imagery into my articles.
The best we’re likely to see of “Schweini” (worst nickname ever) is cultured but relatively inconsequential passing, a few robust tackles when he spots 70/30 challenges in his favour and most pertinently, a few hundred more sequinned orange suit jackets added to his fashion repertoire.
Arsenal
Petr Cech
How can I possibly criticise Big Pete?
NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS THIBAUT. NOT AS GOOD AS
What do you think of the signings so far?
