Chelsea willing to release Tiémoué Bakayoko for free — reports

Five years after his last appearance for the club — Five. Years. — Chelsea are apparently finally willing to cut our losses completely on one-time €40m-man Tiémoué Bakayoko, who’s been stuck in career limbo on loan at AC Milan for the past twelve months.

Milan don’t want him and are thus not playing him, lest they risk triggering the mandatory purchase clause in the contract. We don’t want him but had been hoping against all hope that some other team might be willing to give us something in return, like a bag of balls or coupons for a foot massage. Alas.

To his credit, Bakayoko has maintained his expected professional presence at Milan, showing up to training and to matchdays to sit on the bench, but with nary a hope of actually seeing some action. He’s been searching for a solution for well over half a year, but has evidently yet to find one.

Perhaps he will now in January, with Chelsea reportedly willing to cancel his contract (which still has 18 months on it!) and let him go on his merry way (like we did with Ross Barkley in the summer). Previously, we were said to be still looking for a “low-cost deal” to facilitate his departure.

If and when Bakayoko does leave, we will finally be able to close the books on that most disastrous summer transfer window that was 2017 — nearly £200m spent on Bakayoko, Danny Drinkwater, Davide Zappacosta, Álvaro Morata, and Antonio Rüdiger (who alone did come good at long last in the end, many years later, if only for a brief period). Yikes.