IT’s been a strange summer at Stamford Bridge.
The much-heralded arrivals of Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Antonio Rudiger and the less-celebrated introduction of Willy Caballero, gave us cause for optimism for the upcoming season.
These have, however, been joined by what I feel are a number of BAFFLING decisions.
Kurt Zouma, Bertrand Traore, Dominic Solanke, and more concerning, young English players such Nathan Ake, Nathaniel Chalobah, Ruben Loftus-Cheek (albeit on loan) have been allowed to leave.
And, of course, the £40million departure of Nemanja Matic was the latest departure to signal a collective weakening of the squad.
Considering Conte used so few players last season, and with the Champions League providing both more game and travel time, a larger more robust squad for the next campaign was as obvious to the layman as it is to the manager himself.
The issue was highlighted when Frank Lampard held up the programme from the Community Shield against Arsenal at the weekend, the disparity in strength and depth to that of the FA Cup final was evident enough, our squad HAS been significantly weakened in some key areas.
Now this may all be part of the plan, Conte has stated on many occasions that the club know his requirements and the rumours persist around a number of players with Virgil van Dijk, Ross Barkley, Alex Sandro and more recently, Danny Drinkwater of Leicester to bolster our squad options.
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For Van Dijk, we had Ake and Zouma, for Barkley and Drinkwater we had Chalobah and Loftus-Cheek, for Alex Sandro, although not at his level, could Ake and Aina have been given a go too, especially given the prices quoted for anyone who can kick a ball right now.
It may be that a super bid for Gareth Bale will be launched, that we’ll tie up three or four more new players before the end of the season.
But why risk the squad and chances of success, especially given how well our manager did with a squad that he inherited, and not allow him to craft his own?
Has everyone at Chelsea forgotten what he did at Juventus? What he did last season? Why does it seem we’re risking that all of a sudden?
Conte has made it clear the transfer dealings in and out are a club decision, not his own.
He didn’t personally seem too happy we let Matic leave, and when questioned about Hazard reiterated such matters are out of his hands, and I’m sure we’ve been here before.
Talented manager, takes a squad of underachieving players in his first season and turns them into Champions, rather than give him everything needed to sustain that, it seems the board undermine that. I have a sense of deju-vu.
This squad needs further investment if we are to sustain a challenge on all fronts this season, or even just a few of them!
We hope that more signings are in the pipeline, and this is part of the plan.
With Abramovich heading towards a pretty costly divorce on the horizon, let’s hope any further investment isn’t put on hold and that the next divorce he faces isn’t one with another manager.
Toby Brown is editor of TheChels.org
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