Chelsea ‘hope to add at least three first-team players’ in ‘frantic’ January — reports

Like most teams, Chelsea have avoided making too many big moves in recent January transfer windows, where values are hard to find and desperation rules the land as the patsies get fleeced, spirits go down, and profits expand. But we’re about to out-here-we-go Fabrizio.

After a frantic summer transfer window, Chelsea are apparently set for a “frantic” winter transfer window as well — even though we’ve yet to reap any tangible benefits from that record-breaking yet impressively scattershot approach. Weren’t we supposed to prevent a repeat by restructuring the entire organization, putting in place a brand new player recruitment department, and developing a cohesive data-driven long-term plan for the future?

Oh well; make it rain! “At least three first-team players” are hoped for. January 2011, you’re about to go down!

Reinforcing the attack is apparently priority number one, which is just as well since we’ve scored just 17 goals in 14 games so far this season. One might argue that we might unlock more goals by adding some creativity to support said attack, but someone still needs to put the ball in the back of the net I suppose.

David Datro Fofana looks to be incoming, but he’s said to be a player for the (near-ish?) future. The Christopher Nkunku deal is supposedly all done as well, but he won’t be coming until the summer. More immediate help could come from João Félix, Youssoufa Moukoko, Rafael Leão, or Memphis Depay. That’s the list from The Athletic, with CBS’ Ben Jacobs adding Leandro Trossard and Jonathan David to that list, both of who had been linked before as well. Our “desire is to find a forward who can play for several years” (i.e. 25 or under), which seems like a tall (and very expensive) order for January.

As far as the midfield, we again have a young player incoming in Vasco da Gama’s Andrey Santos, but he’s also one for the future. For the present, we’re reminded of our Edson Álvarez intentions, with The Athletic then rolling out the usual suspects in Jude Bellingham and Declan Rice as summer pipe dreams. Jacobs adds World Cup-winner Alexis Mac Allister to the New Brighton list.

In defense, we were wishing for Joško Gvardiol but it looks like we might be unwrapping Benôit Badiashile instead. Not quite as shiny!

When asked about all this the other day, Graham Potter gave the usual answer of working with and improving whom he’s got. That’s certainly a standard line, but this time, it might be hiding a non-standard response from the club.

“What I would say is that historically the January window isn’t so straightforward to find solutions. From my perspective, there was an extreme period and I would not want to make too many drastic assessments based on that extreme period.

“I think the team, as I see it, has not functioned as maximally as I would like it to and I think it can do. The job of a head coach is to focus on the ones that are here and make them better. There is room for improvement there, for sure.”

-Graham Potter; source: PA via Yahoo!

Time to hit the turbo bass!