Chelsea have unsurprisingly been one of the busiest teams in the transfer market this summer and have showed no signs of stopping their big spending.
They have so far splashed £125 million in the market and have signed eight players. They have also sold 10 players, with a high likelihood of more exits before the window closes.
Players in
Despite spending so much money, they haven’t signed many obvious immediate starters. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has been the most expensive signing so far, having played under Blues boss Enzo Maresca at Leicester last season where he contributed 12 goals and 14 assists.
Arguably Chelsea’s most exciting signing this summer is Estevao, the Brazilian wonderkid from Palmeiras. He won’t join the club until next summer however. The 17-year-old is very highly rated and expectations for him are incredibly lofty, with some even calling him the next Neymar.
Tosin Adarabioyo was an astute piece of business, having signed on a free from Fulham. He is a reliable centre half but will be added to an already very large pool of central defenders at the club. Goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen has also arrived to provide competition for Robert Sanchez but may need time to develop.
Players out
Chelsea have shipped out 10 players but still have quite a bloated squad and will be hoping to offload more before the end of August. Many of those to have already left have not played much of a role at the club and have not been sold for much. Two notable sales though have been Lewis Hall and Ian Maatsen.
The two left-backs have been sold for £66 million in total and have both been sold to other Premier League clubs – Hall to Newcastle and Maatsen to Aston Villa. Villa and Newcastle will be challenging Chelsea for the top four or six places next season and if either of the fullbacks stands out, people will be looking at Chelsea and wondering why they let two promising left backs go whilst Ben Chilwell and Marc Cucurella are still at the club having been inconsistent for long periods. Omari Hutchinson has also departed for Ipswich, where he spent last season on loan.
Arguably the player that they will miss the most is Thiago Silva. The 39-year-old has joined Fluminense after a fruitful four years in London. He was a stalwart in defence all the way through and provided leadership and experience that will be hard to recreate.
Conor Gallagher is also in talks over a possible exit and will be a big miss in the Chelsea midfield, but given their ongoing rate of spending, sacrifices have to be made if they are to stay on the right side of profit and sustainability rules.
What still needs to be done
Chelsea will still be eyeing one key position, striker. They have heavily linked with Victor Osimhen, with Napoli boss Antonio Conte keen on a possible swap deal involving Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku.
A possible season loan with an option to buy seems a realistic option but Chelsea are reportedly put off by his wage demands. If a deal can be agreed it will hugely boost their firepower and be a real statement to the rest of the league. Signing a top level forward should be by far the biggest priority for the club in the rest of the window to ease the load on Nicolas Jackson.
Chelsea have spent vast sums of money in the past two seasons and while continuing to strengthen in the market is important, seeing improvement from those already at the club will be the most crucial factor if they are to progress this season with another new manager in Enzo Maresca at the helm.
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