Chelsea are the suckers at the poker table

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After the transfer window closes, we’ll start doing a lot more match and player performance analysis. We’ll also have transfer grades for every Premier League team and a handful of teams on the continent this September.

Enjoy today’s newsletter where Kim yells at Chelsea and Ted imagines what Adrien Rabiot is doing while waiting for someone to sign him :)

Like it or not (for most of us the answer is not), Chelsea have been the main characters of the transfer window. If you’re sick of this, congratulations, we’re going to talk about other stuff starting on Monday. I won’t whine about Chelsea’s transfer policy again until January, this is The Kim Promise™.

While other rich teams have made one marquee signing at most, followed by some inexpensive squad players or youngsters for the future, Chelsea have gone nuts. A total of 10 new signings have been made, while moves for Victor Osimhen and Jadon Sancho are still pending.

Chelsea’s squad bloat feels more absurd when you realize they’ve already gotten rid of a ton of dudes. A whopping 11 players have been sold for reported fees before deadline day, with Thiago Silva and Malang Sarr also leaving on free transfers, and a handful of other academy players being sold for nominal fees. There are, as of the morning of Friday, August 30, currently 14 players out on loan.

Despite having in excess of 30 players leave either permanently or on loan this summer, Chelsea still have more than 40 players on professional contracts at the club.

Here are the guys that Chelsea are really, desperately looking to get rid of today:

• Raheem Sterling

• Ben Chilwell

• Trevoh Chalobah

• Dorde Petrovic

• David Datro Fofana

• Deivid Washington

• Armando Broja

It appears that sister club Strasbourg will be used to dispose of Petrovic and Washington after no market materialized outside of the Chelsea universe. But Clearlake only has so much money to pour into Strasbourg in order to alleviate problems at Chelsea. Someone else is going to need to take the other dudes.

This also doesn’t include the further dozen or so players that Chelsea would be content to have as backups or U23 squad players this year, but would really rather find a new home for.

I think that Chalobah will probably go somewhere for a decent fee by the end of the day because he’s a good, young, English player on reasonable wages. The remaining group, though… oof.

Sterling looks likely to find a way out through some combination of a loaning team paying about half his wages, Chelsea eating a lot of his wages, and the player himself taking a minor pay cut to get a change of scenery. That’s hardly a long-term solution to anyone’s problems. As of this writing, the situation is similar for all the other players — someone might take them on loan, but not with any obligation to buy. It’s deadline day though, so who knows what kind of weird stuff will happen.

I’m not discounting Chelsea’s ability to pull a late rabbit out of their hat and get a couple of these players out the door with no previous rumours linking them to anyone, but they won’t get rid of everyone. They’re going to have somewhere from 5-10 players at the club who the front office and first team manager absolutely do not want.

That is going to cause both squad harmony and PSR problems. Some of them may be alleviated in January, but some of them might linger for years.

Over the next couple of windows, Chelsea might clean up their books considerably and get themselves onto some more stable footing. But I am already very willing to declare that Clearlake are not The Transfer Geniuses. They have not exploited market inefficiencies, they have not revolutionized anything, and they are not getting a big return on investment. They have tons of assets that are constantly depreciating in value, and they can’t convince anyone else of their value. Chelsea have been caught bluffing.

To quote Rounders (1998):

—KM

News and Rumours

• Adrien Rabiot is still a free agent, which is like, REALLY unusual for a 29-year-old midfielder and French National Team member, given the season has already started. All I can think of is Adrien sitting in a lakeside cabin in the French Alps. He’s drinking Kronenbourg and eating epic amounts of cheese, looking like Fat Thor as his mom begs and cajoles him to come back for another tour of duty.
  
  cut to Rabiot playing EA Sports FC 25 and getting shit-talked by some kid for the 5000th time
  
  “n00bmaster, bon jour c’est encore Adrien. Ecouter, if you don’t log off this game immediately, I am going to fly over to your house in a private jet, come down to that basement, and kick the living shit out of you like that time I ended Ben Chilwell’s career.”
  
  “Adrien, please... It’s time to put the controller down so we can make another £40M.”

  
  “Mom, stop. n00bmaster69 is Lamine Yamal. I must destroy him!”
  
  “I have been negotiating and three teams have even promised to put a beer fridge in your locker…”

• Joan Garcia, who was at one point a lock to be Arsenal’s first real transfer of the summer, is now NOT moving to North London to be their backup GK because Espanyol have insisted on Arsenal paying his pesky release clause. Instead the Gunners seem to be loaning Bournemouth backup GK Neto.

• Nottingham Forest have a spelling problem. First they spat out Neco Williams transfer rumours in the summer of NICO Williams. And today they are rumoured to be signing Morato in a summer when MORATA has already moved from Atletico Madrid to AC Milan.
  
  The good news is that MoratO is an intriguing 23-yo left-footed centreback named Felipe Rodrigues da Silva from the football factory that is Benfica. We’re not sure he’s as good as Marc Guehi, but he does appear to cost 6-7 times less. And is also presumably more likely to marry an Argentine model that will create entertaining copy for the tabloids.

• Jonathan Tah is NOT moving to Bayern Munich, because Sporting Direktor Max Eberl says there will be no more incomings. Our guess is Tah makes the switch as a free agent next summer.

• Speaking of not moving, Marc Guehi looks set to stay at Palace this summer. Now, we have thought for a month that Newcastle producing allegedly crazy bids for Guehi was over the top behaviour. But maybe Palace are the dummies here for not accepting something crazy last week, and replacing Guehi for half the cost. Or maybe Palace CAN’T sell because they already moved Joachim Andersen and have injury problems on their back line.
  
  OR MAYBE… no crazy bids were lodged at all.

• Carlos Soler looks ready to move from PSG to West Ham, mostly because he wants playing time. Soler was never really good enough for PSG, and now the question is whether a Spanish coach can revive his career and make him good enough for West Ham.

• Romano reports Wilf Zaha has arrived in Lyon to join Olympique Lyon on a loan deal from Galatasaray. A return to the Premier League was apparently ruled out due to tax issues?

• Alex-Oxlade Chamberlain was found by French customs and immigration hiding in Zaha’s luggage. But the current Besiktas player laughed it off, claiming it was merely part of a connecting flight to London, where he will join West Ham. Or Brentford. Or Ajax? Or anywhere that considerably closer to home than Turkey. Ox initially thought he was travelling to Turkey for black market hamstring replacements, but contracts are contracts.

• Neal Maupay has moved from Everton to Marseille. We’re still trying to wrap our heads around OM’s summer where they signed De Zerbi, Hojbjerg, Maupay, and a player the mayor publicly tried to veto as a bad idea.

• Forest are also allegedly loaning James Ward-Prowse, who as of two days ago West Ham were not strictly definitely moving on, but were absolutely open to fielding offers for.
  
  Image of JWP loan, sans new kit is included below.

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