... Sky Sports! The world locally-famous news outlet wins the prize for this week's bizarrest Chelsea rumour. Congrats to Greame Bailey and his sources:
Sky Sports sources understand Chelsea have made a move for Porto left-sider Alvaro Pereira. #cfcless than a minute ago via web 
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Graeme Bailey
SkyGraemeBailey
Yeah, that rumour has been floating around for a while, and for pretty good reason: Pereira's a fine player and Andre Villas-Boas obviously has previous experience managing him with Porto. But it's also now completely nonsensical. Observe this timeline (it's not a long timeline, but it has more than one point, so it counts):
- Chelsea sell Yuri Zhirkov; left-sided utility player.
- Chelsea buy Juan Mata, left winger.
- Chelsea linked to Alvaro Pereira; left-sided utility player.
Does anyone else see something slightly strange about the idea that Chelsea would sell Zhirkov as surplus to requirements (at a good price) and then bring in Pereira and Mata to play the same side? If Ashley Cole was an issue, Zhirkov wouldn't have been sold. Left wing was indeed an issue with Zhirkov's departure, but that's what Juan Mata is for. At this point, buying Perreira would be spending something like 30M on a designated bench player.
For all of the reports about Chelsea's transfer market insanity (and Fernando Torres is a pretty strong argument, I have to admit), for the past year or so they've made very wise purchases. Ramires, David Luiz, Mata... their big signings have all been reasonably priced and filling a direct need. Pereira is neither. I would have some sympathy for the idea if the Mata signing hadn't gone down, but this just makes no sense to me now that a real left winger is in the fold.
I don't see any way this happens.