Chelsea are now very close to completing the signing of Tosin Adarabioyo, who will join as a free agent after his Fulham contract expired.
Fabrizio Romano has just Tweeted that the defender has today completed his medical, and gave his famous “here we go” to a deal that was confirmed as all but done a week ago.
With the medical done, it’s just a question of timing when the announcement will be. It seems reasonably that this has all been delayed until new manager Enzo Maresca was confirmed in his position. But with that happening yesterday, there should be no need for further delays now.
Tosin was a major target for other teams including Newcastle, and he will bring some much needed Premier League experience to a Chelsea squad which still looks like it lacks calm heads at times.
A good player – but a potentially bad trade for Chelsea
There’s not a huge amount more to say on this deal – Tosin is a really solid player who adds height to our backline and replaces the depth we lose with the departure of Thiago Silva. He also looks pretty comfortable on the ball, which should help Maresca greatly as he looks to get this team playing some pretty patterns out of the back.
But as we’ve maintained all along, if signing Tosin means losing Trevoh Chalobah, it’s not a trade we’re particularly happy with. The sporting directors may say it’s just a financial necessity that Chalobah has to go (with the big lump of cash we get for him helping us short term more than the cost of Tosin, which is nicely spread through his contract) but that’s a situation of their own making. You don’t get any credit for digging yourself out of a hole you put yourself in.