The intertwined Chelsea fates of Loïc Rémy and Alexandre Pato

At first glance, there's not much that makes sense about Chelsea's supposed pursuit of Alexandre Pato.  His glory days seem long gone, his upside seemingly limited to not being as bad as Falcao.  Though that latter bit is probably a bit harsh considering that while Mr. Tiger has spent much of the last two years injured and scoreless, Mr. Duck has spent it being healthy and scoring at a decent rate in Brazil.  Still, that's nothing to inspire great excitement.  This isn't 2009 or 2010, after all.

However — and this may be just me rationalizing something that I fear could become a reality — from some angles, the Pato move makes a certain bit of sense.  His transfer fee (around £10m) is well in line with what we've spent on recent backup strikers like Loïc Rémy or Demba Ba; his wages would presumably be, too.  He's still fairly young, though with plenty of harsh miles on those legs.  He's also a big enough name to be able generate a bit of buzz.  That's not a huge consideration, but I'd be much happier with signing Pato than, say, Vardy or Adebayor, for example.

Where the Pato pursuit makes most sense is in conjunction with the aforementioned Loïc Rémy, who's been repeatedly linked with moves away from Chelsea in order to find consistent playing time and maybe, come the summer, have one final chance to represent France at a major tournament.  It's a long-shot, but he wouldn't be the first player to move for such reasons.  In fact, here's a Telegraph report that goes as far as to claim that Rémy is hoping that Pato will allow him to do just that.

If Chelsea have basically written off Falcao for the season even if we can't actually send him back to Monaco until the summer — and the way Hiddink (and Monaco themselves) have been talking recently, Falcao's latest injury could prove more troublesome than initially diagnosed — and if we're ready to acquiesce want-away Rémy's supposed desires, signing a new backup would make sense.  Hiddink has hinted or perhaps even urged Chelsea not to make hasty signings, but he's also said that we would move and move quickly if needed.

The Telegraph's report claims that Granovskaia herself is leading the Pato negotiating team.  If that's true, we could soon be playing our very own version of Duck duck Guus at Stamford Bridge.