Matt Law is a great journalist who does a great job covering Chelsea for the Daily Telegraph, but today he’s made a statement we really disagree with.
Speaking on the London is Blue podcast about the amazing progress of Estevao Willian, the journalist made a point about the sale of Noni Madueke.
Law says Chelsea had to sell first choice winger to make space
“You do have to praise the club [Chelsea], because they took a difficult decision in the summer about selling Madueke,” Law mused.
“You can accuse Chelsea of being traders, but at the end of the day, space had to be created to give this very special lad [Estevão] a path, and you had to be brave enough to sell Madueke, who I think was Chelsea’s second top scorer last season.
“Maybe in the short term, we might get to the end of the season, Arsenal might have won the league, Madueke might have scored 10 goals for Arsenal and you could very easily construct an argument that Chelsea shouldn’t have sold Madueke to Arsenal.
“But if you want this kid [Estevão] to become what he obviously could become. You have to create space and a pathway for him. And Chelsea did that in the summer, and it’s very exciting where that could lead.”
The f-Law in the Law-gic
Well there’s a pretty obvious flaw in that logic – Estevao wasn’t the only winger Chelsea signed this summer. They also signed Jamie Gittens and Alejandro Garnacho. They could have kept Madueke and not signed Gittens. That would have made minutes in the early stage of this season a little more hard to come by for Estevao, given Madueke would have been more trusted than Gittens is, but it wouldn’t have changed things dramatically.
@chelsea would have gotten Xavi, kept Madueke and leave out Gittens. it was obvious Chelsea needed a C. Palmer backup. the way it looks now not sure if Chelsea would hold up well till Palmer recovers.
It’s not a bad argument. Except you have to remember that Arsenal already had Saka who’s level, I believe, we would want Estevao to develop to. So if Arsenal are willing to have both compete and develop side by side, then why weren’t we? I am disappointed that we look at players as commodities, and we will never progress if we keep looking at the next shiny toy.