Chelsea’s sporting directors must have thought they’d had a pretty good week, with positive news about all sorts of sales they desperately need to make having progressed nicely.
The deals to sell Kepa Arrizabalaga and Romelu Lukaku looked to be moving forward, while Armando Broja, another tricky asset to shift had agreed a deal with Ipswich and was being talked of as a done deal.
As is so often the case in football, that confidence has been misplaced. Today news was broken by Jacob Steinberg that the deal – a loan move with a £30m purchase clause should the Tractor Boys stay up – had suddenly collapsed.
The real reason behind sudden collapse
Steinberg claimed this was due to a “paperwork issue”, but further reports coming out since his original story have much darker and more worrying claims.
There were whispers from Dharmesh Sheth of Sky Sports that it could be related to the striker’s medical, and Simon Jones of the Daily Mail has all but confirmed that that was the basis for the breakdown. Broja has had a number of injury issues, but none was bigger than the ACL injury he picked up late in 2022. It took him almost a year to recover, and he’s barely started a game since then.
Curiously this story claims it’s problems with his Achilles tendon that is concerning Ipswich, but all these thing are (quite literally) connected.
He’s still just 22, and we have faith in him and his ability, but it would be a pity to see this move fall apart as it felt it had great potential.
The good news is that Jones emphasises a deal could still go through – but only if Chelsea lower their demands, presumably the £30m purchase clause is seen as too risky for a player with his injury record.