Since the Clearlake takeover, Chelsea have made themselves one of the top teams in Europe for hoovering up young South American talent. From Andrey Santos, Kendry Paez and Angelo Gabriel to the impending arrival of Estevao Willian, which looks like it will happen this summer, the whole strategy has turned from buying elite players who are established in Europe to try to grab the best Latin American talents before they make the move across the Atlantic.
But there may be a funny exception to this trend, if AS in Spain are to believe. They’ve today thrown Chelsea into the mix as one of the teams interested in signing Vitor Roque from Barcelona. The striker arrived there in January for an initial €30m with another €31m potentially payable in bonuses, but simply hasn’t been able to pick up any minutes.
His agent has been speaking out in recent weeks saying his client wants to play more, and given Barca’s financial troubles, they may have to sell him sooner rather than later. They clearly gambled on the 19 year old being ready to play much more than he is, and they’ve drained a huge portion of their available funds buying a player who can’t contribute to the first team.
Wary Chelsea fans won’t be delighted
Plenty of Blues fans are pretty tired with their side signing endless young talents, and would be very wary about this deal. The whole problem Roque has in Spain is that he’s apparently not yet at the level required to play (even irregularly) for Barcelona. If he’s not up to that, how could we expect him to step into our team right away and do well? He would need the same adaptation period here, and most fans want a striker who can make an immediate impact this summer.
If they find out the club has spent its whole budget on another raw prospect who might be good in a few years, they may riot.