This January was expected to be one crammed full of sales for Chelsea – Trevoh Chalobah, Conor Gallagher and Armando Broja and others were all strongly linked with moves away at times.
But in the end, while Broja did get a loan, Chelsea weren’t able to get the prices they want for their superstars.
Given the club need to sell to balance the books, this puts them in an increasingly weak position. The summer will be a much better time to do business overall, but Chelsea’s widely known need to sell is going to depress the value of all these assets.
The 30th June cut-off for Premier League rules is going to be huge – expect the Blues to try and get their work done before then, as former Premier League executive Keith Wyness explained on a podcast this week:
“Chelsea are going to have to offload players early in the window – before the books are balanced on 30 June, Their business is going to be the big one to set the ripple effect going – if they don’t achieve their targets.
“They can then go out and spend again later in the window. That just shows to me that these rules and limits are being applied in the wrong way.
“There has to be an element of common sense that comes into this. Chelsea will target certain players, like Gallagher, to get maximum value as he came through the academy at the club.”
So while January ended up being a damp squid, the early weeks of this summer should be quite the opposite.
