Sterling To Saudi Is Off Base, But A Lukaku Move Could Be On
Despite our continued phenomenal spending following the arrival of Todd Boehly and the Clearlake Capital group, the 2023/24 domestic Premier League campaign has again been an incredibly frustrating and difficult one for Chelsea fans.
Manager Mauricio Pochettino has had his moments and helped oversee some very good results and performances, but much like those gaffers who came before him, he has had his own issues when it comes to consistent performance levels, and really building some kind of team understanding and spirit and for those fans who like a flutter and had taken acca bets and odds on us significantly improving this year, well simply put, they will be disappointed with their pre season choices. With the money spent, you would have thought the team would have matched the bookies early season optimism for a top six finish.
We obviously have the players, and we have spent handsomely on assembling them, but serious questions have to be asked about our transfer strategy and the kind of backroom work that went into establishing whether or not they were actually capable of performing together.
Sadly, on far too many occasions they have shown that they cannot and it is almost impossible to argue that sat in eight place in the table with only 49 points on the board, is not roughly exactly where we deserve to be, right now.
Far more was expected of Pochettino, but privately he will undoubtedly be fuming that the players have been unable to give him more, and fans will be well aware of the rumour mill speculation that suggests we are already trying to quietly search for a new manager for next season. But at some point we really need to look a little bit deeper, as although we keep changing managers, very little ends up being different on the pitch.
Whatever happens over the summer, when it comes to possible dug out changes, given our more recent spending the educated guess is that we will need to see some necessary departures to help balance the books a little bit better, and reduce the size of the overall squad in the hope that a tighter unit helps them to gel far better and in a way that they have not, so far.
One of the prime rumours in recent times was that we would be looking to cash in on the emergence of the Saudi Arabian Pro League and had hoped to capitalise on Raheem Sterling, by tempting in a big offer from one of their State sponsored sides, but it is believed those rumours are wide of the mark and that the 29 year old England international attacker has no interest in making a move like that at this stage of his career.
Having fallen down Pochettino’s pecking order this year having suffered form issues of his own, whilst his future at Stamford Bridge is arguably still uncertain, it seems that he is unlikely to leave the Premier League at this point and speculation suggests he is very settled in London and would happily stay.
That does, however, bring us quite nicely to Romelu Lukaku, as it makes very little financial sense to continually loan him out to other sides for the remainder of his contract, and despite doing pretty well out in the Italian Serie A, our permanent transfer valuation of him has been true rich for even their tops sides.
Whether Saudi is an option for him remains to be seen, but quite simply, if we are not going to bring him back and play to his strengths, then it is time to cut our losses and just get some kind of money in for him that better suits our current situation.