Chelsea may have done Man City two transfer favours in Arsenal battle
Manchester City are looking to move on from the Pep Guardiola era and topple Arsenal in the Premier League title race
Chelsea have helped out their former manager Enzo Maresca and Manchester City
Fair play to Aston Villa, who said they wanted more for Morgan Rogers than Manchester City paid for Elliot Anderson and found someone willing to pay it. The usual bores will blame the Blues for inflating the market and many of them may well support Arsenal, who wanted Rogers but didn’t think he was worth £117m.
Time will tell on both players, but Chelsea jumping the gun to sign Rogers means that Anderson’s time as the most expensive English footballer in history has been extremely short-lived. He is still weeks away from kicking a ball for his new club and has already had that mantle taken off him.
That might be nothing, but you never know. Jack Grealish was considerably less carefree when every second mention of him labelled him the £100m player. “I’ve noticed in the past six months, especially, it’s constantly (a talking point),” he said after his first season at the Etihad.
“If I was worth £20m, I think I could play games, not have a good game and people wouldn’t say a thing. But because it’s £100m, everyone talks about it, that side of it it’s a bit annoying.”
Anderson’s cost will still be spoken of, but Chelsea have moved the dial by meeting Villa’s valuation for Rogers. City will hope that their 23-year-old recruit has the temperament to cope with the extra pressure on his shoulders, yet it is already no longer as heavy.
The other aspect of Chelsea buying Rogers is that Arsenal have missed out on a top target. Where the Gunners may have hoped to wear Aston Villa down over time and pressure, as Liverpool did with Newcastle over Alexander Isak last year, the Midlands club simply found another bidder to pull the rug from under their negotiating table with Arsenal.
Mikel Arteta’s side remain the team to beat this season, having clinched the Premier League trophy in May. City came closest to them but have had to deal with the departure of Pep Guardiola and a disrupted pre-season with so many players at the World Cup.
It feels like Enzo Maresca will be crossing his fingers and hoping to get through the first weeks of the campaign before City can build their strength up again, so the less prepared Arsenal are for the season the better for the Blues. Having to change transfer plans so significantly definitely counts in that regard, leaving the champions having to regroup and rebuild with the season nearing.
Having had to publicly apologise to Chelsea after being appointed City manager, Maresca might privately be thanking them for stepping in to hijack a transfer for Rogers.
