The Athletic’s piece on Chelsea’s squad today was full of interesting bits about all sorts of players.
One with some pretty definitive information thrown in was Noni Madueke. The winger is apparently up for sale, should Chelsea receive a reasonable offer.
“The club would still consider offers in excess of the £28.5million paid to PSV Eindhoven to acquire him in January 2023,” writer Liam Twomey notes.
It’s also thrown into the mix that Madueke was a signing pushed for by a former manager, in an apparent attempt to absolve the sporting directors from some blame:
“Graham Potter, Chelsea’s manager at the time, was one of the biggest advocates of that deal.”
Sounds like the briefing is out then: “Madueke is up for sale if we can recoup our costs, but don’t blame us for a bad transfer, it’s all Potter’s fault.”
Madueke has been good in preseason but the arrival of another winger plus the financial impossibility of selling Raheem Sterling and Mykhailo Mudryk means that the England youth international is more vulnerable to a cash grab.
A head scratching signing and strategy
We’ve not been Noni Madueke’s biggest fans in his 18 months at Chelsea, despite his obvious strengths in some areas.
But for all our criticisms, the question should be more about why we bought him, than anything else. Madueke was considered an interesting young player with potential – the kind you’d expect to see go to a mid-table Premier League side and try to earn a move to the top.
We jumped far too early on a mediocre talent – and now it sounds like we’re bailing on him rather than looking to develop him.
It’s all part of this very confused and confusing strategy which doesn’t seem able to commit itself one way or another. Are we giving players 8 year contracts or are we selling them if they don’t kill it in the first 18 months? Doing both at the same time is madness.
Sorry, SuperFrank, but you how do you square calling him a mediocre talent with your implication that we should be developing him??? Chelsea supporters are notoriously impatient when it comes to giving youth a chance to develop (because it rarely equates to consistent winning), so how exactly do you propose we “develop” Madueke if he’s shown such an inconsistent work ethic on the pitch? The guy loves to take on a defender but then hangs his head and won’t track back and do the work defensively. I honestly don’t think that’s anything that can be “developed” at a big club. If a player can’t come to play every minute like it’s he’s last he’s really got no place at a big club like Chelsea. We took a chance on him and lost. Big deal. Happens all the time and plenty of mid-table teams would be happy to have him. Sell him and let’s move on without all the hand-wringing and obnoxious second-guessing.
(Speaking of second-guessing, it’s kind of funny how you never said a word about how badly wrong the club—and supporters like you—got it with Christian Pulisic. Funny that!)