Chelsea have just announced the signing of Caleb Wiley from Atlanta United for £8.5m.
The 19 year old left back is an exciting prospect, but with Marc Cucurella and Ben Chilwell already in place in the first team, it seems as though he’s going to be sent to our affiliate club RC Strasbourg for the season on loan.
It’s a nice move for Caleb, who has racked up a lot of senior appearances for his age already, but needs more minutes at a a top European level. Hopefully he slots right into the Alsatians’ first team and plays 20 or 30 games this season.
But the decision to send him there is going to have knock-on effects for the rest of the team, and the log jam of players in their teens and early 20s is only growing.
A potential loan crisis on the cards
Under FIFA rules, Chelsea have 6 international loan slots available to them for this season. Wiley will use up one, and indications are that Andrey Santos will also head to Strasbourg, using another.
That leaves four slots for foreign loans, and a hell of a lot of players who might want to use them.
Bashir Humphreys, Alfie Gilchrist, Gabriel Slonina, Alex Matos, Cesare Casadei, Lesley Ugochukwu, Angelo Gabriel, Leo Castledine, Harvey Vale, Deivid Washington, David Datro Fofana and Mason Burstow, by Tom Coley’s reckoning, are all players without a first team role who might want to be loaned abroad.
And that’s assuming Kepa Arrizabalaga and Romelu Lukaku are sold this summer – certainly the club’s intention, but something they’ve failed to achieve for years. It also assumes Marc Guiu, Renato Veiga and Omari Kellyman are all staying with the first team.
Of course domestic loans are still allowed – but even then it’s a bottleneck which really reduces our options in terms of trying to find the best possible temporary home to develop all these players.
