It is fair to say that there have been a number of ups and downs for loyal Chelsea fans following the takeover by Todd Boehly and the Clearlake Capital group and transfer window business has become a strange distraction – and there is no sign of that ending as the Stamford Bridge outfit are now apparently chasing a key Tottenham Hotspur star.
From the highs of lifting the UEFA Conference League and the Club World Cup which saw plenty of Chelsea matchday tickets shift off the shelves, the lows have seen ridiculous spending with no obvious or clear plan outside of a ‘kid in a sweetshop’ approach – the potential punishments that flow from that – and a never ending cycle of managers who depart just as they seem to have a handle on managing a first team squad of 120 players.
The latest change, of course, was Enzo Maresca who seemed to determined to get the sack because people kept telling him who to play, and he was replaced by Liam Rosenior in January of this year despite him being the gaffer of ‘absolutely linked in no way sister club Strasbourg, here have another eight loanees whilst we sign two more stars’. The 41 year old Englishman was initially a breathe of fresh air, but slowly over time and like so many who came before him, ‘players failing in their marking assignments’ began creeping into their play (as they crept into the centre circle for a quick pre-half hug) and dropped further away from the top four spots in the Premier League table.
With Chelsea now marooned in sixth place and more likely to be usurped by those below them than play catch up on Liverpool seven points ahead of them, their form of five defeats in the last six games has blown their chances of real progress this year and missing out on Europe altogether is now a real possibility and this is absolutely not what they would have wanted for the business end of the year.
It does mean fans can soon distract themselves with the summer transfer window though as we all know Chelsea will spend (they seem incapable of not spending) and the speculation rumour mill is now full of claims that they will capitalise on Spurs’ impending relegation to the Championship doom by stealing in and taking Lucas Bergvall from them.
The 20 year old, eight capped Swedish international, midfielder was already going to be a hot property this summer and Spurs would have had a hard enough time keeping him to begin with, but relegation leaves them purely attempting to maximise the fee and as a comparison, £50 million was favoured as the lowest starting point for negotiations to be plausible to begin with – suffering the drop could make that a likely fee if the player were to push strongly for a move away.
It is said that Spurs’ board view the player as being ‘unsellable’ but again that all changes given another season of distraught for fans and having him contracted up until the end of the 2031 campaign does not mean an awful lot in reality.
This is very much one to watch, but from Chelsea’s point of view – Bergvall turned down Barcelona seeing better career progression in North London, would he really see Chelsea and their 350 international midfielders for competition as a sensible next step?
