Report: Oriol Romeu heads to Valencia on loan

We've been hearing rumors about an Oriol Romeu loan for the past several weeks, and today there are reports indicating that a loan has been agreed. It looks as if the Spanish midfielder will be spending the 2013/14 season in La Liga, attempting to help Valencia regain a spot in one of the European places.

Romeu is coming back from a fairly serious knee injury, and it's unclear how many minutes he'd get in a midfield that includes Michael Essien, John Obi Mikel, Marco Van Ginkel, Ramires, and Frank Lampard. The club still lack a truly world class player at the position, but quality depth just doesn't appear to be an issue.

Combining the first team depth with the fact that many of the club's top prospects play the midfield, a loan for Romeu just makes loads of sense as he continues to recover from injury. He'll likely get far more minutes at Valencia than he would here, something that will clearly be of benefit to the youngster as he attempts to prove himself. It should also be of benefit to Chelsea, who will really need as much game film as possible to evaluate some of these young midfielders that are on the verge of first team breakthroughs.