Nickspinkboots’ Note: All the people gnashing their teeth while looking at the barren Chelsea section of this website can stop that irritating sound now, because we have a Chelsea writer. Mohit Minhas is an engineering student in my college and, imitating the natural order in London, is my junior. We hope to have him with us for a long time to come, and I hope to make him write my notes from time to time.
How Chelsea manage to somehow bottle it in the transfer market despite having, as the media would have you believe, limitless pots of gold generously donated by a certain Russian oligarch, is a question various football followers regularly ask, with expressions ranging from utter dismay to pure amusement, depending on which side of the fence they choose to sit.
A close look at the transfer activity of the club over the recent years would reveal to you the mysterious ways in which Chelsea have functioned. Millions of pounds charitably given away to clubs across Europe for Carlos Kickaballs, washed up soldiers and players simply not good enough to wear the shirt, along with botched-up deals for potential world beaters go a long way in explaining how the club has managed to seize defeat from the jaws of victory in various competitions, in spite of having the backing of the man who single-handedly defeated Hitler’s Germany during the Second World War. I have no potential of being a historian, I hear you thunder. But the point remains. Someone responsible for concluding deals for the club has not done their job properly.
You’d have to go back to January 2008 for the last non-debatable good pieces of transfer business Chelsea have done. Branislav Ivanovic or Nicolas Anelka, take your pick. Both players have excelled at the club, proving to be solid if unspectacular, more so in Ivan’s case than Sir Nic, whose periods of being Kalou(an anagram of dogshit) have been complemented rather well with moments of sheer brilliance. The fact that he is the only player in the squad aside from Malouda and Drogba who can actually run with the ball in a fashion not closely resembling a headless chicken, and that his replacement in the squad is the aforementioned headless chicken Kalou himself, quells all doubts in my mind. The price paid for him was also not much of an oil spill.
- Bright (and bald) spot
Moving on, I do believe the deal for Bosingwa was an excellent one, and this is reaffirmed by the fact that he had an astonishing first season at Chelsea. However, consistent bouts of injuries since then have made him little more than a spectator, one who gets paid for watching the games at that. It isn’t really the club’s fault, you say. But what actually is the club’s fault is the fact that now that he’s fit and close to his best, poor Jose has a contract that ends this summer with no signs from the club’s hierarchy indicating they wish to retain the player. And all this while the past-it Paulo Ferreira is slowly filling his pockets churning out disgraceful displays for the first team. Yossi Benayoun could have been a spectacular signing for the club, but an unexpected injury and subsequent spell on the sidelines has nullified his contribution. One player’s injury troubles have certainly not been unexpected, though. How an £18m deal was sanctioned for Yury Zhirkov proves to be beyond my level of understanding, given that the player was already showing dodgy knees when the move was made for him.
The best piece of transfer activity, or rather inactivity, which hugely benefited the club was dozing off at the last moment during the negotiations for Robinho. But for every dodged bullet in the form of the pint-sized Brazilian, there has been one that has bit us right in the arse – Andrei Shevchenko comes to the fore. Shaun Wright Phillips, Deco and Khalid Boulahrouz also take to the stage, each an example of the three charitable donations the club seems to have a penchant for. The jury is still out on Ramires, and yours truly seems to be of the opinion that he might eventually prove to be more of Essien than Kalou, running with direction rather than simply running whe he finally adjusts. Concentrating on transfer exits rather than entries brings to light the cardinal sin committed by the Chelsea board. Allowing the club’s best defender to leave for a measly sum, and on top of that not replacing him adequately has precisely been the reason for Chelsea’s recent defensive troubles. And before one suggests that Carvalho had been aging and oft-injured, I suggest having a look at his displays for Real Madrid. The ones other than that against Barcelona, I mean. Granted, he did submit a transfer request, but a replacement should have been lined up to ensure that good old Paulo never had to trouble his legs standing vaguely in the position of a central defender against Sunderland. Michael Ballack, too, could have served the club an extra year or two(and he was willing to take a pay cut), making the occasional appearance while Ramires was still adjusting or Mikel was having his paroxysms of being shit. Miroslav Stoch too was showing promise when the club decided to shaft him on to Fenerbache.
The club also seems to be styling over all other teams, believing that if you are only permitted to have 11 players on the field, what is the point of having more than 11 footballers in the squad? This is none more so evident than in the case of Petr Cech. Every single man and child inside Stamford Bridge seems to be holding their collective breath when the Czech international stays on the ground for too long.
And Chelsea still haven’t learnt their lesson. Steven Pienaar was allowed to drift towards the north of London, when he could have proved to be a valuable addition to the squad for absolute peanuts. The deal for David Luiz has me a skeptic, but if Signor Ancelotti rates the player highly and the club are already willing to go bonkers by offering in the region of €25m, offering a few extra rubles and getting their man wouldn’t be such a bad idea. The offer for Torres has gleamed light into the eyes of many Chelsea supporters, but it is ill-timed if anything. Chelsea have set sail a month too late. The deal may still be possible, but the laws of probability state that there was a much greater chance of him becoming Chelsea’s number 9 when Liverpool were hoofing it up to the Spaniard under an incompetent manager, and losing games all the same.
Maybe the club should put wheeler-dealer Harry Redknapp in charge of transfer negotiations, an added incentive being the services of his missus who would ensure that the goal drought that Chelsea were experiencing while Drogba was under the weather would never repeat itself.