The last 7 days have seen quite a remarkable situation emerge at Chelsea.
At the end of last season we were in a bad way – we had not only had the worst season in living memory, we’d done it on the back of a period of exceptional spending. We were going to have to recover from it while selling quite a lot more than we were buying.
But over the last week, takers have emerged for some of the many unwanted players we have. All these buyers have some things in common: they can pay these players enough to make them leave their big contracts at Chelsea, and the clubs can pay enough to Chelsea to make the transfer happen. The other thing they have in common is that they’re all in Saudi Arabia.
It’s a very fortunate situation for Chelsea without doubt. A new league with unimaginable wealth has entered its spending phase just as we entered a desperate selling phase. It’s so convenient that according to a story in the Telegraph last night, some of our rivals are demanding the moves be looked into by UEFA. They assume it’s too good to be true, and there’s some kind of illegal operation going on.
We haven’t seen any indication of that, just blind luck. But it’s a story we’ll have to keep an eye on…
Leave Chelsea alone. When they were buying you criticised them, when now selling, you criticised them. Is Saudi Arabia a country under sanctions not to sale players to?
Gary neville what a prize prick