Chelsea have three players to treat like Kai Havertz after Mauricio Pochettino transfer decision
What if, just what if? Two words that mean so much and yet so little, often questions tinged with retrospect and hindsight but also grounded in reality. For Chelsea in recent years it can be applied in many different ways.
What if they had pushed harder to sign Aurelien Tchouameni instead of going for Saul Niguez on loan? What if Billy Gilmour had been prioritised and Carney Chukwuemeka trusted in midfield over another temporary addition in the form of the totally forgettable Denis Zakaria?Could Tammy Abraham have scored the eight league goals Romelu Lukaku did in 2021/22 and done it without the club imploding around him?
Decisions, decisions, decisions. Chelsea have made a lot of bad ones recently. Was Kalidou Koulibaly really a better option than Fikayo Tomori in the 12 months seperating their moves to and from Stamford Bridge? How did Christian Pulisic last so long and what on Earth was going on with David Zappacosta?
These deals cross ownerships, they span sporting directors and transcend eras whilst perfectly encapsulating the slump that has been part of both the end of the Roman Abramovich era and start of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital one. What has maybe changed, just maybe, is some of the clarity.
That is strange to say for a club that moved on more than ten players over the summer including one that they purchased less than a year ago and eight that would genuinely have been considered first team options in May. The movement at the top of the club has been nothing less than totally unsettling and the plans not always clear. There has been a ruthless ark though, splitting with Thomas Tuchel and Graham Potter, holding little value in sentimentality. A messy plan is at least a plan.
Rightly or wrongly it is
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