Jacob Steinberg’s piece on Chelsea’s transfer window released today has some interesting notes.
He claims that manager Enzo Maresca had made specific requests to those signing players for him:
“Chelsea’s new head coach, had asked for two positions to be strengthened before the end of the transfer window. He wanted a centre-back and a top No 9… Late on Friday night, though, the recruitment team had to admit defeat in their attempt to convince [Victor] Osimhen to fit into Chelsea’s stringent wage structure. There was no new centre-back either, although there was still a flurry of activity.
We could have predicted those would be the positions he wanted to be strengthened. In fact, we’re surprised he hasn’t also asked for a goalkeeper and a proper defensive midfielder too. All four of those have been lingered problems for some time, and the sporting directors seeming obsession with signing more wide and creative attacking players is even more strange in the context of those urgent needs.
The piece goes on to detail the push for Victor Osimhen, and how it all fell apart because of the demands of the striker. That’s fair enough – but weren’t those demands pretty predictable? Couldn’t they have been established months ago?
The dust settles after a crazy window
Chelsea have certainly added some good players this summer, but in order to do so they had to sell and loan some very good players too. While the squad is certainly different, it’s hard to say it looks that much better, and it’s still lacking in those key positions.
If our defensive options live up to their potential and Nicolas Jackson keeps improving, we might be ok. But those are big question marks. We can’t imagine Maresca has been filled with confidence in the competence of his superiors now.