Chelsea ‘offering €4m in compensation’ to Lyon for Emerson recall — report

With Marcos Alonso as the only (“natural”) left wing-back left in the first-team following Ben Chilwell’s season-ending injury, Chelsea are actively looking for solutions. Our primary option appears to be bringing back Emerson Palmieri from his rather successful loan at Olympique Lyonnais in France.

Although Emerson is technically our player, getting him back is proving to be tricky business. Lyon have a buy-option in the loan, and even if Emerson was willing (which he seems to be, maybe?), Lyon would still need to replace him for the second-half of their season. Leaving them high and dry would not be very nice on our part.

To that effect, Chelsea are said to be offering some sort of compensation, and according to Fabrizio Romano’s report in the Guardian (and his incessant tweeting, of course), that compensation could be as much as €4m in cash, if not more in the end.

That might look farcically like we’re paying €4m to get our own player back, and would in fact be us paying €4m to get our own player back, but would likely still be a much cheaper option than any sort of actual transfer, with the added benefit of Emerson being familiar with Tuchel’s system and methods already. Emerson has been good enough for Lyon and good enough for the Italian national team, even if he had been stuck behind Chilwell and Alonso at Chelsea.

“We have some long-term injuries that we are concerned about, but play for Chelsea and to find these players in January is not easy. [But] there is no news. Once we have news we will update you.”

-Thomas Tuchel; source: Football.London

We’re clearly trying to solve this unfortunate debacle this in the cheapest possible way, with a potential Plan B being a recall of young Ian Maatsen from Coventry City, which Sky Sports (via Coventry Telegraph) are once again claiming is under consideration.