Chelsea have endured a mixed start to the 2013/14 Premier League campaign and Jose Mourinho may ring the changes in January by axing three of his players to make way for new recruits.
The Portuguese manager isn’t fully satisfied with his squad according to Portuguese newspaper A Bola report that there will be departures as Mourinho targets two new forwards and a central defender.
David Luiz is the most high profile player amongst the names of candidates for the exit doors and has come under criticism this season for making a catalogue of errors already whilst Kevin De Bruyne will be looking for regular football after being dropped from the first team and Demba Ba, who is never likely to be first-choice and even has a hard time being back-up these days, is also to be sold.
A Bola‘s story doesn’t go on to specify which players Mourinho is looking at in particular but there may be some debate amongst the fans over the aforementioned players that are linked with the exit doors and whether or not it would be the right thing to move them on, especially in the cases of Luiz and De Bruyne.
I have never been a big fan of Luiz as a player and his lapses in concentration can really irritate me. Despite this I really thought that he improved hugely over the course of the previous campaign and proved that he is a good defender, so I’m wondering just what has happened to make him regress in this way as we all know he’s capable of much better. I’d also argue that because of the erratic nature of his play he is something of a convenient scapegoat to mask deeper running issues.
As for De Bruyne, he looked bright at Werder Bremen last year and started the season really well for Chelsea but he’s attracted the ire of Mourinho somewhere along the line, perhaps for his lacklustre performance against Swindon in the Capital One Cup but so did most of the players that featured in that match. I still think the Belgian has a big future ahead of him and would rather it be at Stamford Bridge or we may live to regret moving him on prematurely.
Ba almost went to Arsenal on-loan before the close of the transfer window but the plug was pulled on the move as Mourinho feared that Mesut Ozil’s surprise move to North London was significant enough to make them a threat and he didn’t want to help their cause whilst simultaneously adding to his own problems. The Senegalese forward isn’t likely to make a big impression at the club now or in the future, so it would be sensible to cash-in on him as soon as possible if there’s a suitable buyer.
For all of Mourinho and Chelsea ‘knockers’ this season I would just like to say that this squad has played some excellent football and for me personally I think we are still one player short of being an excellent side. We desperately needed either someone like Falcao or even Suarez to consistently get the goals and finish off some terrific attacking movement. The same way that van Persie did for United last term. If this one missing peace of the jigsaw can be brought in this January, this could still prove to be an exceptional season for the Blues. I completely trust Jose and he WILL get this right. News of him personally ‘scouting’ Falcao this weekend sounds very promising and fingers crossed that he can pull something out of the bag in January.