Chelsea had a fantastic (and expensive!) summer transfer window, yet it ends on a somewhat disappointing note. Perhaps disappointing is the wrong word. Concerning? Confusing? Whatever feeling is evoked by Chelsea doing absolutely nothing at all to address the midfield.
We added a new goalkeeper (great!), a proper left back (finally!), a ton of new attacking talent (oh my!), and even signed a legendary center back who should still have legs enough to get us to next summer. But the midfield remains greatly unbalanced and seems entirely dependent on N’Golo Kanté turning back the clock to 2015-2018 timeframe.
Chelsea appear to have targeted former Academy youth Declan Rice as a long-term solution, but West Ham had no intentions to sell and Rice didn’t seem all that willing to leave either. Meanwhile, Chelsea weren’t able to jettison as much of the deadwood on the books as we might have hoped.
So when the possibility of adding Thomas Partey for €50m arose, Chelsea did nothing. Which is unfortunate, since the former Atlético Madrid man is now at Arsenal. (Even if the Chelsea rumors were just to prompt Arsenal to pay the buyout and sacrifice Gunnersaurus, it’s a bit unfortunate that we didn’t seem to explore this possibility too much.)
Official: Thomas Partey to Arsenal. ⚪️ #DeadlineDay
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) October 5, 2020