Rio Ferdinand claims the Chelsea squad lacks balance following summer midfield fire sale
Football pundit Rio Ferdinand has asserted that the Chelsea squad lacks balance at the moment after the club sold a plethora of their midfielders in the ongoing summer transfer window.
Mateo Kovacic recently joined Manchester City, while N’Golo Kante signed for Al-Ittihad on a free transfer. Manchester United have agreed to sign Mason Mount while Jorginho moved to Arsenal last January.
All the abovementioned midfielders had been Chelsea’s regular starters in midfield, and they all are now plying their trade for other teams. With Mount and Ruben Loftus-Cheek set for Manchester United and AC Milan, respectively, we re in a position where we re lacking in depth and quality.
This has left Chelsea with Enzo Fernandez, Conor Gallagher, and Carney Chukwuemeka for next season. Ferdinand is concerned that the Blues have sold their top midfielders, which has now unbalanced the squad. Here is what he claimed on his FIVE YouTube channel, (h/t Daily Mail):
‘You look at Chelsea’s midfield—Jorginho went last season, Kante and Kovacic have gone, Mount and Loftus-Cheek are on their way out. That’s five midfielders; two or three of them start. There’s no midfield at that club at the moment. They’ve got about eight or nine attacking players in the wide areas, but the squad lacks balance; they’re crying out for some midfielders.”
As Ferdinand has pointed out, the club sold some of its top midfielders who were regular starters. We do have Andrey Santos and Cesare Casadei for the upcoming season, but they are inexperienced and will need some time to get used to playing in the Premier League, so it might be wise to loan them out to other league clubs before handing them too much responsibility.
There are many areas in midfield that Chelsea needs to shore up after we have sold plenty of midfielders. Thankfully the decision makers appear to be aware of it and should make their move to land Moises Caicedo soon. With Mount now gone, attention should shift to Caicedo and Gabri Veiga.
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The team is in need of a defensive midfielder who can assist Fernandez from the middle of the pitch. Now that we have made a tidy profit on our recent sales, we should make a full effort to recruit players who are the right fit for Mauricio Pochettino’s system. Ferdinand is right that we currently lack balance but the summer window is far from done.