Sky Sports are tonight reporting that Chelsea are “in talks” with Leeds over signing Tyler Adams, backing up reports in recent days that they’re interested in him.
But why would Chelsea be in talks of any kind, given that Adams has a reported £20m relegation release clause that the Blues can just pay? What is there to negotiate with Leeds? Why don’t they just go straight into contract talks with the US international?
The reason is very similar to the reason we saw the club locked in negotiations with Benfica for weeks before signing Enzo Fernandez, despite him having a release clause.
Essentially, both teams know that Chelsea can pay the fee (in this case £20m) up front and move straight to contact talks. But in that case, the money has to be paid all at once. They may prefer to pay a little more, with Leeds then allowing them to space out the payments a little more, as happened with Enzo.
Ya paren de fichar a tanto niño, pareciera que ya no habrán más jugadores por años, tranquilos hombre…si les sobra dinero mejor les paso mi número de cuenta.
#6553-7883-0101
Ummm…has anyone stopped to question whether Tyler Adams is really going to want to come to Chelsea after the way his countryman (Pulisic) was treated? I mean, most Chelsea supporters seem to fancy their club as the “hottest guy at the dance†(I mean, who can refuse that jawline?!), but I’m not so sure Adams is going to see it that way.
As a young player with his best years ahead of him Adams is certainly going to be concerned about playing time and, without reassurances from Poch, is likely to view a move to Villa as a better opportunity to continue to gather on-field experience than a switch to club who apparently only wants him because they can’t seem to land their first choice (Caicedo). They’ve had all summer and are only approaching him now on the eve of the new season??? How flattered he must feel—like the pretty girl next door who no one bothered to ask out until all the hot girls were spoken for, lol!
It certainly will not have gone unnoticed by Adams that when his countryman’s form dipped at times (often on the heels of a return from injury) Pulisic hardly received the same “fair shake†afforded to the Brits and Germans in the Chelsea squad (I lost track of the number of starts that Werner, Havertz, Mount, and more recently Gallagher even when they weren’t playing particular well). Just the fact that a player (Adams) who FBref has in the 99 percentile for tackles and 97 percentile for blocks is only valued at 20 million goes to show that there is a clear anti-American implicit bias in the Premier League. If he was from any one of half a dozen other “true footballing nations†he’d be going for at least twice that!
So, Chelsea supporters let’s not flatter ourselves too much here and assume that just because Leeds were relegated Tyler Adams is going to come running into our arms. As both an American and a Blue I’m admittedly torn because I think Adams has a bright, bright future and could be an incredible pick up for Chelsea, but I also don’t want to see his career derailed by the legendary revolving managerial door at Chelsea and/or a fickle fan base that thinks it’s open to American football talent but hasn’t really shown that it knows how to respect it yet.