Chelsea hustle Everton for £20m with Barkley, rustle the Mayor of Liverpool, too

There are plenty of questions over Chelsea’s decision to sign Ross Barkley for £15m today. Most of them have to do with football (is he good enough?), planning (where does he fit in?), prospects (but what about RLC?). The one thing just about everyone can agree on is that Chelsea got a very good price, especially in today’s climate where even the most mundane of players tend to go for £20-30m. And Barkley may also be rather mundane, but he’s only cost the club half that price (plus wages, obviously).

What makes Chelsea’s deal even better from a financial standpoint is that we were ready to conclude this deal at £35m on transfer deadline day back in August before Barkley had a change of heart and left Chelsea standing at the altar of the medical. At the time, this was assumed to mean that Barkley was willing to wait for Spurs to make a move, though he himself mumbled something about wanting to recover from injury before deciding, which really didn’t make much sense though it did result in a massive scar so it was undoubtedly a major injury.

Everton had been counting on Chelsea’s millions at the time, and their chairman Farhad Moshiri was none too pleased to get Barkley back. He knew that he’d only be able to sell him now for far less than the £35m. As it turns out, Barkley “cost” his old club £20m in transfer fees, never mind the wages and other expenses they had to pay over the past five months — football only does guaranteed contracts after all.

So that’s good for Chelsea. So good in fact that the Mayor of Liverpool, an Everton fan, had all his jimmies rustled today and is mad online and will not take this affront lying down. To the letter writing!

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE SHEEPLE

HE’S WORTH 50M IF HE’S WORTH A PENNY!

This is gold.

Worth the £15m already.