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The exodus continues with Frank Arnesen relieving Chelsea of yet another promising player. Unlike Michael Mancienne or Jacopo Sala, winger Gokhan Tore was a man many considered with a potential future at Stamford Bridge, impressing whenever he took to the field.
At 19 years old, Tore was an instrumental part of the Chelsea reserves' success last season, helped out immensely during the FA Youth Cup win in the season prior and is already a fully-fledged international with Turkey, featuring on the bench during their 1-1 draw to Belgium this weekend. Tore represents a signficant loss for the Blues, but at least it comes with a €1.3M reward. I'd expect him to do well in the Bundesliga - he'll start off as a substitute with Hamburg but will be given plenty of time to progress.
A song about the situation, inspired by Pink Floyd and @pkwesi77:
We don't need no first team football
We don't need to play at all
We've got our training down at Cobham
Hamburg leave our kids alone
Hey! Frankie! Leave our kids alone!
All in all it's just another kick of the ball
All in all it's just another kick of the ball
You can't really blame some of these guys for leaving Chelsea considering the total lack of opportunity they were given last year. Tore, who joined from Bayer Leverkusen in 2009 played with the first team in the preseason, was never going to be given a chance to play for Chelsea under Carlo Ancelotti, and it's probably best that he gets the opportunity to go elsewhere.
The likelihood of Tore making an impact at the top level was fairly slim, but he was someone still worth taking a longer look at (like Miroslav Stoch last season). Unlike Sala and Mancienne, he's familiar with Germany already, holding a German passport (qualifying for Turkey through his family) and having been born in Cologne. His presence should help the other two adjust to life in Hamburg a little more easily.
Anyway, there's some news on Mark Hughes as well. Turns out that Chelsea haven't even been talking to him about filling the managerial position left vacant by his agent - or if they did, they've bypassed his agent.
There's a vacancy but I'm sure they have their own planning. We've not spoken to them. They've not spoken to us.
-Kia Joorabchian, Mark Hughes' agent. Source: Dan Levene (Twitter).
I would probably stop worrying about Hughes coming on board at this point. I'd be very, very surprised if Chelsea hired anyone other than Guus Hiddink to manage for next season, because the other names we've been connected to (Harry Redknapp and Mark Hughes, mostly) are such poor fits for the club. The only name that's really out there is Hiddink's, so we should be getting ready for that to happen.