Next manager hopes to make German midfielder his first signing

It is getting a little crowded at the top of Jose Mourinho’s list of transfer targets for Chelsea, where he’s expected to succeed Rafael Benitez, but Sami Khedira will be the first signing of his second stint at the club according to reports.

The Real Madrid manager only recently negotiated his departure from the Santiago Bernabeu club and is now free to discuss his next move and he is already drawing up plans, according to Simon Johnson of the Evening Standard.

Khedira is allegedly one of the few players at Real that has a good relationship with the former Chelsea and Inter manager and was one of his first signings when he took over Los Blancos in 2010. Mourinho is keen to recruit a midfielder but the German international has two years remaining on his contract and could cost as much as £20 million, says Johnson.

How much?!

Don’t get me wrong as Khedira is a decent player and obviously has quality if he’s at one of the biggest clubs in world football but that’s far too much money for someone that I find so underwhelming.

His pass accuracy isn’t bad as he averages around 83% completion which is better than Frank Lampard (81.4%) but inferior to Ramires (84.6%) and John Obi Mikel (88.6%). I don’t think he’s as good as either Ramires or Mikel as a ball winner either as he averages less tackles per game and isn’t going to other any sort of attacking threat like Ramires can when he flies from box-to-box, so I don’t really see what he would offer.

I do think we need to bring in a midfielder this season as the central pairing need to provide much more protection to the back four that they did last season, especially the fullbacks who were often overloaded, and ideally we need to move the ball to the creative players quicker. But we should be looking at someone that is significantly better than what we already have, not Khedira. Still, it’s not nearly as bad an idea as Marouane ‘can’t pass water’ Fellaini.

Source: Evening Standard