With Chelsea missing Reece James through injury and struggling for alternatives in the ranks, they may dive into the January window in search of cover.
What’s the talk?
One name that has emerged is Wolverhampton Wanderers’ Nelson Semedo.
“Chelsea also like Nelson Semedo from Wolves and are considering him as an option to come in to give competition for Reece James,” journalist Simon Phillips recently told GIVEMESPORT.
Despite Chelsea shelling out £253.8m on incomings during the summer, three of them defenders, they weren’t able to bring a suitable alternative in for Reece James, which has become a real problem now for the West Londoners with the 22-year-old injured.
Disaster waiting to happen
Joining from Barcelona in 2020 for an eye-watering £37m considering how much he’s struggled, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a wind-up but there’s no denying that desperate times could call for desperate measures.
It isn’t the first time this has become an issue with the right-back missing 29 games since the turn of the 2021/22 season – that number will continue to rise with a return not on the near horizon.
This has made backup imperative, especially after the 4-1 defeat on the weekend to Brighton and Hove Albion in which manager Graham Potter admitted he made a mistake playing Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic in the roles that James or a capable alternative would play.
The Portuguese would seemingly represent a cheap short-term option with his contract set to expire in the summer and no advancements on his current £84k-per-week deal as of yet, despite this it’s still a deal owner Todd Boehly must avoid.
So far this season he’s averaged a terrible rating of 6.42 by WhoScored for a Wolves side sat second from bottom in the league, even registering an abysmal 5.9 rating in the 3-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge, you’d like to think the interest hasn’t stemmed from the impressions he set that game for the sake of the Blues board.
Previously labelled a defensive “liability” by The Athletic’s Tim Spiers, the former Barcelona player scored twice and assist 11 goals for the Catalan side mainly from full-back but there have to be questions over how he racked up 124 appearances and picked up two La Liga titles.
Chelsea need to stay well clear of the 28-year-old, who earns a reported £76.9k-per-week at Molineux, even if they are in dire need of reinforcements in the wing-back position.
