Gary Neville says Chelsea made one really ‘strange’ transfer in January

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Gary Neville thinks that Chelsea’s decision to splash the cash on Enzo Fernandez in the January transfer window was really strange.

The Blues coughed up a British-record sum of £106.8million (Sky Sports) last month to bring Fernandez to Stamford Bridge.

He’s been sold by Benfica after only half a season with them, but he’s been a hot topic of conversation ever since he played a key role in Argentina winning the World Cup in the winter.

Enzo Fernandez doubts

Pundit Gary Neville actually thinks Chelsea have made a mad decision to spend £100million-plus on Fernandez.

He suggests that deep-lying midfielders should never be worth that kind of money, regardless of their quality, so he’s critical of such a colossal transfer sum.

Incidentally, he’s compared the transfer to the Blues coughing up £60million (BBC) in the summer to sign left-back Marc Cucurella from Brighton.

“Cucurella, £64million. Fernandez, £105million. That’s a full-back and that’s a midfield player that’s sitting at the base of a three,” Neville told The Overlap.

“The ceiling on those types of players like Rodri, Fabinho, Casemiro, they’re £50-60million positions. These aren’t players that are playing the forward part of the pitch scoring 30 goals. It’s what they’re paying for the actual positions you’re getting them for. It just seems strange transfers.

“I’m not saying the players are not good, the players could be really good and go on to be great, but the positions you’re buying the players in for the fees, it seems madness to me.”

Of course, Cucurella’s transfer figure is one that looks worse the more you examine it.

The Fernandez deal doesn’t immediately scream out to you as a horrific deal, though.

Graham Potter’s side have had to invest a lot of money to sign a rising star from Benfica, but this is one of the very best young players in the world. There’s no getting around the inflation of transfer costs in general, too.

He did sit at the base of midfield in his Chelsea debut against Fulham last week, which left Potter hailing his individual quality.

However, Chelsea’s new No.5 offers a lot on top of his ability to break up play. For example, he scored four goals and made seven assists during the first half of the season in Benfica colours.

It looks like Chelsea have invested massively in an all-action midfielder that offers a lot in every department, so let’s wait and see where he specialises moving forward.

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