Romano: Chelsea should regret selling Fikayo Tomori

Chelsea made a mistake selling Fikayo Tomori under the old regime.

What’s the word?

That is according to Fabrizio Romano, who has taken to his exclusive Substack column with Caught Offiside to question the Blues’ decision to sell the defensive brick “wall“, as dubbed by The Athletic’s James Horncastle – for £24m in 2021 without inserting a buyback clause.

Taking to his column, Romano said: “As I mentioned recently, Chelsea have a buy-back clause for Tammy Abraham, but what about another of their former players who is performing so well in Italy right now?

“Unfortunately, Chelsea fans, there’s no buy-back clause included in the Fikayo Tomori deal. Of course, it wasn’t the current board that sanctioned this deal, and I think people from the old board should regret the decision of selling Tomori on loan with buy option.”

A big mistake

With further restrictions around loanees at clubs in the present day, you can understand the likes of Manchester City for selling players like Pedro Porro, Romeo Lavia and Gavin Bazunu to grant them regular minutes and aid them in fulfilling their potential.

However, the difference is that the Cityzens have inserted relatively cheap buyback clauses on all three high-potential assets, facilitating a possible future return to the club.

Chelsea have failed to do this with Tomori and have been mismanaged under the old regime in this regard.

For a start, upon both his and Tammy Abraham’s respective departures, the restrictions around loaning players out were not as tight, so the Blues were far from forced into the sale of the potentially world-class duo.

Even when they sanctioned the permanent departures of the pair, they agreed a massive £67m buyback clause for Abraham and failed to muster up the same for Milan defender Tomori.

For context, City can buy Porro back for £17.5m, in what is just one case of astute business, with Pep Guardiola keen to see his players claiming first-team minutes in top-flight action rather than potentially stunting their growth in the under-23s.

Even under the new regime, Chelsea panicked and sold Billy Gilmour to Brighton for just £9m with no buyback clause!

In line with Romano’s revelation about Tomori’s sale last year, the Stamford Bridge club will need to learn from mistakes which could one day come back to haunt them.