Fabrizio Romano has reported that Chelsea sent a €40m offer for player who “would be perfect for what they’re building.”
Chelsea did plenty of transfer business over the summer window and they could have done a lot more as well, with many deals that they attempted not going through. Some might have looked a bit opportunistic.
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There was a lot of late drama in the transfer window for Chelsea as they scrambled around to get some outgoing deals done before seemingly advancing on some late new arrivals as well.
Ben Chilwell was one of those late outgoing moves, joining Chelsea’s sister-club, Strasbourg, on a permanent deal. He made his debut for the French side over the weekend and faired OK for his first outing.
They also reportedly sent a huge offer to Juventus late in the window to try and sign one of their star players, Kenan Yildiz, although I’m not sure that I believe this one or not….
But the bottom line is, there were some deals that they worked on that didn’t get done and that were not perhaps as much in the media as other pursuits were.
Chelsea bid for Lopez
One story that did get it’s fair share of media attention was the attempt to sign Fermin Lopez from Barcelona.
Romano has been speaking about this one on his latest Here We Go Podcast episode.
Romano on Fermin
The transfer expert said:
“Chelsea offered €40m to sign Fermin Lopez. That money was never going to be enough to convince Barcelona.
“From what I’m told, Chelsea sent that bid, even though they knew that the deal was almost impossible, because they really wanted to make the player feel that their interest is concrete.
“They really believe Fermin would be perfect for what they’re building at Chelsea.”
So they made a “token†bid to a player who, by all reports, had no interest in leaving Barcelona? I’m sorry, but that sounds more naive rather than clever.
We had (and still have) a serious lack of quality depth behind Cole Palmer and it’s difficult to understand how the directors made a 70m offer for Yildiz but weren’t willing or able to pony up a similar sum for Simons or Lopez (or Kudus), and, instead, ended up with Buonanotte. By all appearances, they got distracted by a shiny object named Alejandro Garnacho and, once they were done splashing cash on him and couldn’t get a permanent sale for Nicolas Jackson, they had to scurry to do a makeshift loan deal for Buonanotte. This is curious because, once we had Delap, Pedro, and Gittens in (together with the arrival of Estevao), you’d have thought the next highest priority after finding cover for Cucurella (Hato) was finding cover for Palmer (because, despite Pedro’s versatility, he can’t cover the 9 and the 10 if both starters are out at the same time). For most of the window the rumor was Xavi Simons was the target. We learn now that a serious offer (swap plus cash) was also made for Kudus, an even bigger (all cash) offer was allegedly made for Yildiz, and a far less serious offer was made for Lopez. How then did we fail at all FOUR and come away with only Buonanotte??? When did the directors take their eye of the ball, or else decide (wrongly) that they could survive an entire league season plus three cup competitions with the squad they’d assembled on the eve of the transfer window closing (i.e., before the panicked final hours with the Buonanotte deal and the Guiu recall)? For all of the otherwise savvy sales we made, it certainly begs the question: Did the directors get a little carried away with their buying low and selling high and lose track of their priorities?
chelsea fc do a bit mistake in last trasfer business