Four mistakes Chelsea chiefs made in January transfer window including Joao Felix loan deal

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Since becoming Chelsea’s two sporting directors, Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley have come in for heavy criticism from supporters.

And after Chelsea‘s January transfer window, that is unlikely to change. Simply put, they made mistakes, mistakes that fans will not be happy about.

Enzo Maresca‘s side played on Monday, beating West Ham United 2-1 to take some eyes off of Chelsea’s transfer window.

But now that the game is out of the way, it is time to look at what Stewart, Winstanley and the rest of the club got wrong last month and on deadline day.

• READ MORE: Every incoming and outgoing deal Chelsea completed on transfer deadline day

Joao Felix’s loan move to AC Milan

Chelsea only signed Joao Felix from Atletico Madrid last summer. The Portuguese forward arrived for big money, so the fact that Chelsea have had to loan him out already is quite embarrassing.

Having barely played in the Premier League this season, Felix would have wanted to go. But the 25-year-old is an attacker with a lot of talent and technical quality. Stewart, Winstanley and Maresca have all failed here; Felix should have been retained and utilised more.

Not signing a new striker

While Nicolas Jackson started the campaign well, as it progressed, it became quite clear that Chelsea needed to sign another centre-forward.

Following his failure to net in Chelsea’s victory over West Ham on Monday, Jackson has now gone eight Premier League games without scoring a goal.

Chelsea’s chiefs will argue that the club’s targets were not available, but could they have perhaps gone for Marcus Rashford, who joined Aston Villa on loan?

Rashford can play up front and on the left flank, another area the Blues tried to strengthen when the window was still open. You cannot help but feel that Rashford was a missed opportunity for Chelsea.

Not recalling Andrey Santos

Chelsea also needed to add a midfielder to their first-team squad, one ready to make an immediate impact.

Romeo Lavia keeps getting injured, leaving Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez to play every game.

Considering that, it made plenty of sense to recall Andrey Santos from his loan at Strasbourg, where the Brazilian is currently flourishing. But instead, Chelsea turned to a young and even more inexperienced midfielder than Santos in Mathis Amougou, with there not even being any guarantees that he will play for the Blues’ first team.

Loaning Renato Veiga and Ben Chilwell

Ben Chilwell needed to leave Chelsea for the sake of his own career, but with Renato Veiga also departing Stamford Bridge, it means Marc Cucurella is now the only recognised left-back in Chelsea’s squad.

In the race for top four, Chelsea are certainly not making things easy for themselves. One bad injury to Cucurella, and Stewart and Winstanley are going to come in for even more criticism.