Chelsea's very public and very official vote of confidence for Mourinho included a specific and perhaps telling emphasis that he already 'has the squad' with which to engineer the turnaround. Many are taking this to mean that Chelsea won't be making much of a splash in the January transfer window. But rumors continue to push for the likes of John Stones or Marquinhos or whichever young and exciting attacker may be the flavor of the month.
While we could certainly use defensive reinforcements and most of our attacking players seem woefully out of form at the moment, the squad's greatest need may lie in midfield. (Again.) Which is where our best future friend Paul Pogba and possibly even Koke come into play. Both have been linked with Chelsea at various times over the past couple seasons, but we're hardly the only ones interested. In fact, Barcelona are generally seen as the club in best position to sign one or maybe even both of them. They supposedly already have some sort of pre-agreement in place for Pogba, while according to recent rumors, Koke is high up on their list of targets as well. Chances are, at least one of them will be playing at the Camp Nou sooner rather than later.
But perhaps not too soon, at least not until next summer. Here's an interesting little ditty that was making the rounds yesterday.
Barcelona can spend 10M during January transfer window. Don't rule out loaning a player, with a buy option included in the deal. [sport]
— barcastuff (@barcastuff) October 11, 2015
Is it funny that this is happening right after a transfer ban? I think it might be...
Despite stories claiming otherwise, UEFA's FFP regulations do not prevent Barcelona from spending more than €10m on transfers in January.
— Jake Cohen (@JakeFCohen) October 11, 2015
Barcelona has its own internal regulations that require the club to reduce its net debt, but that has nothing to do with UEFA and FFP.
— Jake Cohen (@JakeFCohen) October 11, 2015
The obvious move here for Chelsea then is to spend in January, before Barca get to it. Whether that's for Pogba (who, much to Juve's chagrin, isn't the greatest no.10 and needs to be played deeper in midfield) or Koke (who supposedly is held in high regard by Mourinho), if we are to bring in reinforcements, January could be the ideal time to do it.
Koke isn't keen on leaving Spain, but as long as Jose Mourinho is at #Chelsea, a move will be made for the midfielder. [Sport]
— Chelsea HQ (@Chelsea_HQ) October 11, 2015
Neither option would be cheap by any means (Koke's release clause is something like €65m, while Pogba might cost at least twice as much) but we do have the money. Even if our bold "plan" — I'll believe it when I see it — to entrust the keys to the midfield to Ruben Loftus-Cheek after the international break works out beyond our wildest imagination, there's plenty of room in the squad to upgrade with world class options like Koke or Pogba. But our window of opportunity might be closing earlier than we could be expecting.