Nothing has been confirmed yet, at least not at the time of writing this post, but let’s assume Wayne
Rooney swaps the Red Devils shirt for the iconic Blue uniform of the Southwest
London outfit, who and who might be on their way out of Stamford Bridge? Which player or players are Chelsea willing to sacrifice? That remains the big question as there are some playing departments in the team which are not the way they should be, but if the worst comes to the worst, one or more players would have to look for another club in order to make room for any big summer signing that is to join the lads at the Cobhams training ground. This is what I will be looking at in this post.
Just yesterday it was revealed in the
media that Chelsea's request to Manchester United for the transfer of their disaffected striker, Wayne Rooney, was turned down. This was after I published a post weighing the possibilities of Rooney making the move to Chelsea. I wrote on how possible it would be for him to join Chelsea, but the club went a step further (and I was left surprised by the speed at which they did it) by making an official bid for England's talisman. The chances of Rooney joining the Blues are there and I would be the least surprised person on Earth if Rooney is unveiled as a Chelsea player before the end of this month. And it would prove crucial for Chelsea if he does that as it is going to give him considerable time to gel with the team and adjust to life in one of Manchester United's fiercest rivals for over a decade now. It won't be an easy transition I must say, but it is up to the backroom staff, the players and the coach to make him feel at home at Stamford Bridge.
It turns out to be that this transfer will not only be in the interest of the club, but it would also be in the interest of Rooney himself if he moves to Chelsea. This change of scenery would enable him to recover his best form in an atmosphere devoid of tension as it is now in Manchester United. It will also help him stake a claim in Roy Hodgson's squad for next year's FIFA World Cup in Brazil. If he were to stay in Manchester United, there is every possibility that he would have to settle for a back-up role to last summer's arrival, Robin van Persie, who dethroned him as the king of Old Trafford over the last season. New manager, David Moyes, with whom Rooney has had a frosty relationship, went further to confirm this by insinuating that he (Rooney) would continue from where he stopped last season - playing a supporting role to star man RVP. This is not good for a player of Rooney's quality, he needs to be playing regularly. He doesn't need to be a back-up to anybody, he needs to be the boss and pump in the goals. He needs to be confident again and this is certainly what Chelsea can offer him.
Chelsea, on the other hand, are in serious need of a top-class striker after missing out on the likes of Diego Forlan, Edison Cavani, Robert Lewandowski and Stevan Jovetic. There is no gain saying that Chelsea's attacking line needs to be sharpened, yesterday's match with the Singha XI only goes to prove that point. But with the UEFA's Financial Fair Play system already in place, Chelsea needs to balance the books by offloading one or two players who can fetch good money. But who are those players going to be? Your guess is as good as mine. But if I am to analyze I would say that one player should be shipped away from the midfield, one from the defence and one from the attack. Why did I say that? Let me explain.
Chelsea currently have an oversupply of talent in the midfield, with the likes of Oscar, Hazard, Lampard and Juan Mata running the show there. Last year Chelsea had eleven midfielders, this year it has added four more (Essien and De Bruyne came back from loan, while van Ginkel and Schurrle were swoop in June) and sold two, bringing the total number of midfielders in Chelsea to a whooping 13! Yes, thirteen midfielders are battling it out for starting berths next season and only five can play all at once. This is one of the highest in the English Premier League, if not the highest. Chelsea can make do with one or two players from the midfield leaving, either permanently or on loan. It has been rumoured that Nigerian defensive midfielder, John Obi Mikel (I happen to be from Nigeria as well), is seemingly on his way out of Chelsea for pastures anew and neither the player nor the management has come out to deny this. If this happens he would surely fetch us nothing less than 13 million pounds. If he doesn't (and I sentimentally pray he doesn't), it then means that we would have to look for other players from the midfield to ship out. One of them can go on loan, but the problem is that it won't fetch us money.
Rooney is a player that would cost us anything in the region of £20m considering how inflated the transfer market has become in recent years and also bearing in mind that Manchester United won't let him go for peanuts since they know how desperate both Chelsea and Rooney are to make the move a reality.
So the option of loaning out players would solve only one of our two problems - oversupply of players - and still leaving us with the most important one - recouping the money we spent on him.
Coming to the forwards, this is where the decision becomes even more difficult to take. Chelsea currently have 3 world-class strikers in their ranks: Fernando Torres, Romelu Lukaku and Demba Ba. Sadly, if Rooney finds his way to Chelsea, one of them is likely to leave. Mourinho, as we all know, prefers to play with a lone striker upfront and Chelsea's pattern in the past two seasons suggests a preference for that system. There is no way Chelsea is going to have four strikers when they can only play with one. Besides, only seven players are allowed to be in the substitutes bench and three of them cannot be strikers. Moreover, they would feel disgruntled if they are not being played.
If there's one striker that is definitely staying and that is Romelu Lukaku. Mourinho has stated it himself that he wants Romelu Lukaku to stay, while keeping mute on the other two. Perhaps he reminds him of Chelsea legend, Didier Drogba. Demba Ba, who arrived from Newcastle in the Winter transfer window of January on the backdrop of a goal-laden first half of the season (where he scored 13 Premier League goals in 20 appearances), has not really lived up to expectations, to be brutally frank. Conversely, the striker only managed to net two goals in the Premier League for Chelsea, the same amount defender John Terry was able to score in the same period though the latter played far fewer games than him. This goals return does not do justice of the huge amount of money that changed hands between Chelsea and Newcastle United for his services.
Fernando Torres, on the other hand, saw his fortune confidence and form improve over the last 19 games of the season. He even added the icing on the cake by netting a whooping five goals in the just-concluded FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil (though four of them came against a Tahitian side that could only boast of a single professional player in their ranks) and ended up as the golden boot winner. But it seems that manager Jose Mourinho is not keen on giving the Spaniard the leading role in the striking position. The fact remains, should any of them eventually leave the club, they won't be leave for peanuts.
Now to the defence, this is another area where Chelsea have an (but this time healthy) oversupply of talent. It is healthy in that it provides healthy competition for the defenders and also makes it possible that our players won't be overstretched the way they were last season when some of them had to play over 60 matches in nine months, that is, an average of 3 matches in two weeks! If the worst comes to the worst, we would have to make do with one less defender in the upcoming season.
Be that as it may, Wayne Rooney eventually coming to Chelsea is another thing, but it is pertinent that Chelsea puts things in order and balance the squad and the account books before the commencement of the 2013/2014 English Premier League season if they should excel in all major competitions.
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