Why Alex Is Not Going To Arsenal, Or Anywhere

We've got less than three full days before the transfer window closes, which means that I personally will finally be free of the Alex to anywhere and everywhere rumours this summer. If you were so silly as to believe the press, Alex was all but gone to Bayern Munich early this summer. Then it was Juventus who were going to pick up the Brazilian centre back. Now it's Arsenal who'll be acquiring him, for a sum of £10M.

There are a number of reasons Arsenal might want him, the most pressing reason being that their defenders are all either atrocious, injury-prone or atrocious and injury-prone. We've also been given to understand that Alex wouldn't be opposed to leaving Chelsea, what with the comments he made to Italian media when the Juventus question was up in the air. But there's no reason for the Blues to let Alex go.

There are five central defenders on Chelsea's roster with squad numbers. John Terry and David Luiz are probably the first choice pairing, while Branislav Ivanovic (who was unimpressive against Norwich) and Alex constitute backup. Nathaniel Chabolah is a super-mega-never-touch-this-button backup, because he is four years old. There is nobody in between the first-teamers and Chalobah - Slobodan Rajkovic is gone thanks to work permit issues, and both Jeffrey Bruma and Tomas Kalas are out on loan.

On top of that, John Terry is fairly injury prone, David Luiz is injured and it's not like Alex is the picture of health either. If Alex were to leave without being replaced, it would be pretty bad news for Chelsea, because it's almost a guarantee with this club's luck that two of the remaining centre halves would go down at the same time and then it's Paulo Ferreira time again and we gently weep ourselves to sleep.

Sure, we could buy Gary Cahill or something to cover Alex leaving, but then it becomes a matter of spending time and resources on the fourth-choice centreback slot, which is pretty pointless with other holes on the team. It's possible that Chelsea would be a little more willing to move Alex if Branislav Ivanovic was crowded out of the right back position and into the middle for good, but still all seems massively unlikely to expect him to go.

Come the transfer window's close, either Alex will be at Stamford Bridge or Chelsea will have signed a defender. Or I will eat my hat.