Chelsea ‘need players’ this summer, but do we need to spend big?
Terry hopes that the club can work over the summer to build a squad that can rival the one managed by Jose Mourinho during his time at Stamford Bridge:
“I always think we should strengthen all over the pitch. I look back when Jose Mourinho was here – we had a very big squad and great players who could come in, but that brings financial problems and players become unhappy.
“We literally had 11-13 players who weren’t involved, but they were a very good set of quality players and we have missed that.
“We need somewhere in between where we are now and what we had back then. We lost a lot of big players this year and maybe we needed a bigger squad.
“But that’s no fault of [owner] Roman [Abramovich] or this football club. What he has done for Chelsea, I couldn’t put into words.
“It is his money and he has dedicated a lot of time and effort, but I would say we need players.”
(The Metro)
Firstly, I agree with JT, the squad has lost some of its quality over time and needs to be rebuilt. We are already on our way to doing this after spending big on the likes of Fernando Torres, David Luiz and Ramires, and also added Yossi Benayoun to the squad for a lesser fee, but he was injured for the majority of the current campaign, unfortunately.
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It’s reported that the club are mainly looking to strengthen in three main areas, right-back (my money is on Gregory van der Wiel), a flying winger (Alexis Sanchez?) and a creative midfield maestro (rumours suggest Kaka perhaps). It would likely cost a fair bit to improve these areas and would improve the first XI, but in terms of the squad, does Chelsea need to be smarter with their money and seek bargains?
For example, just this season Barcelona signed Ibrahim Afellay for under £3m from PSV Eindhoven, Mesut Ozil arrived at Real Madrid for just £13m and they have recently agreed a £9m fee for Dortmund playmaker Nuri Sahin. And there are sure to be more transfer bargains out there this summer, Sylvain Marveaux, for instance, has been touted as the ‘next Malouda’ and is set to leave Rennes on a free transfer at the end of the season when his deal with the French club expires, although Liverpool are believed to be in the driving seat in the chase for the winger.
Manchester United found a bargain in Javier Hernandez, who has scored 20 goals for the Red Devils so far this season and arrived at Old Trafford for a fee believed to be around £6m. Cheik Tiote has also earned a lot of praise in his debut Premier League season after signing for Newcastle United for around £3.5m, both the aforementioned highlighting the importance of scouting networks, especially now that UEFA’s financial fair play ruling has become a factor in football club’s thinking when it comes to spending money.
I think Chelsea’s biggest problem during the current season has been the lack of suitable backup and that there’s not enough competition within the squad. We may have to spend big if we’re to buy players intended to go straight into our first XI, but in terms of building our squad, we ought to do more to compete for the bargains out there and hope that our scouting network (which is set for an overhaul, especially as Frank Arnesen is to depart) can find the stars of tomorrow.