Before I start ripping in to Chelsea’s failure to sign marquee players this month, let us roll back the clock to last summer, when Papy Djilbodji was signed as a panic signing on the deadline day. That signing was meant to cover up the failure in bringing John Stones to Stamford Bridge.
Six months later, Djilbodji has left the club to join Werder Bremen after playing just 1 minute of football for Chelsea. Not only Djilbodji, Radamel Falcao was signed as a makeshift striker, what has transpired there is nothing short of embarrassment for the Blues.
Many experts claimed that Jose Mourinho gave away the title in last summer’s transfer window when he failed to add strength to his struggling squad. The fears were proven right as Chelsea suffered their worst start to a season and are still stuttering at 14th position in the league.
Amid the messy time at Stamford Bridge, buying their way to the top 4 would have been the more orthodox approach from Roman Abramovich. But having to settle for Alexandre Pato after 29 days in to the window, does not send right signals to the club supporters.
Pato’s news has been rumbling for weeks now, and if he was the obvious target, Chelsea could have pressed harder and bought him couple weeks earlier. However, the delay clearly suggests that Chelsea were looking for other viable options but ended up settling for Pato.
Players like Alexandre Lacazette, Edinson Cavani, Alex Teixeira and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang have been linked heavily with Chelsea but were not pursued with vigor and as a result, Blues have ended up another injury prone and out of form striker.
Pato has not scored in Europe for over 3 seasons now and has been battling knee injuries for along. Falcao had similar fears and look how that story has turned out to be. Chelsea fans would hope for better things from Pato, but honestly, they would hope Diego Costa remains fit throughout the season as he is the most likely goal scorer for them at the moment.
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