Chelsea are reportedly planning to offload some of their players this summer before making any signing beyond their reported move for Bayer Leverkusen ace Kai Havertz.
It seems like Chelsea manager Frank Lampard would have to wait before making any defensive recruitment he would hope could help solve the team’s defensive issues.
After the 4-1 defeat against Bayern Munich, Lampard told BT Sport (via the Daily Mail): “We’ll look at that [more summer signings], because that’s our job, we’re very joined up on that already.
“From having a transfer ban [last summer] you feel we’ve missed where other clubs have spent and improved, and recruitment is a huge part of this game.
“It’s a conversation now, the season is ended, it’s a very quick turnaround, so now is the time to see where we can improve, what areas we can improve on.”
New goalkeeper, left-back and perhaps centre-back would arguably be obvious upgrade they could make, but first, Chelsea would reportedly have to make space for new signings.
Chelsea reportedly plan to sell before potentially bringing more new players
According to a report from the Telegraph, while they are prepared to spend £70million on Havertz, Chelsea will insist on selling players before making more new signings.
Looking at the current squad, you could easily see why they might decide to sell first.
Baba Rahman, Davide Zappacosta, Danny Drinkwater, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Kenedy, Lucas Piazon; these are just a list of players from their ‘loan army’ they might want to offload.
Then there could also be the likes of Emerson Palmieri, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Michy Batshuayi, and Jorginho from this season’s first-team on Chelsea’s “up for sale” list.
And this could be a problem, particularly in the current transfer climate.
Double-edged transfer climate for the Blues
Clubs, even those considered ‘richer’ ones, are struggling to fund their summer transfers.
Chelsea who practically have plenty in the back after two inactive transfer windows have benefitted from it, having faced lesser competition for their targets such as Timo Werner’s case.
At the same time, this summer would also be the worst time possible to sell players, particularly if Chelsea are hoping to recoup most of the money they spent on some of these players.
Loan deals with an obligation to buy next summer when the financial situation hopefully recovers or installments could be the solutions, but it would still take time to negotiate, and as a result, further delay for more potential signings.