\n<\/p>\n
As was widely predicted, Chelsea’s decision-makers have veered away from their much-maligned youth-centric transfer model, albeit they have continued to add young players alongside some vastly more experienced campaigners in what has been a typically busy summer of business.<\/span><\/p>\n After welcoming wide man <\/span>Geovany Quenda<\/strong><\/b> following his pre-agreed transfer from Sporting CP and landing highly-rated Italian full-back <\/span>Marco Palestra<\/strong><\/b> from Atalanta, the Blues obliterated their transfer record to pip Arsenal to <\/span>Morgan Rogers<\/strong><\/b>‘ signature in a \u00a3117 million ($158m) deal with Aston Villa. France international centre-back <\/span>Maxence Lacroix<\/strong><\/b>, 26, arrived later in July in a \u00a352m ($70m) switch from Crystal Palace.<\/span><\/p>\n Veterans <\/span>Danny Welbeck<\/strong><\/b> and <\/span>Jordan Henderson<\/strong><\/b>, aged 35 and 36 respectively, completed their unexpected moves to Stamford Bridge in early August. They were joined by versatile Argentine <\/span>Valentin Barco<\/strong><\/b>, who signed from sister club Strasbourg as expected, and 28-year-old Rayo Vallecano full-back, <\/span>Pep Chavarria<\/strong><\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n Attentions have since seemingly turned to outgoings as Alonso looks to trim down what has become a bloated squad. Chelsea had already sanctioned a number of exits; <\/span>Marc Cucurella<\/strong><\/b> departed for Real Madrid during the World Cup for \u00a352m, Cobham product <\/span>Tyrique George <\/strong><\/b>was picked up by Everton, and <\/span>Andrey Santos <\/strong><\/b>swapped Stamford Bridge for Old Trafford in a \u00a350m ($68m) deal. <\/span>Alejandro Garnacho<\/strong><\/b> has also left the club after just a single season, joining Aston Villa on loan with an obligation to buy.<\/span><\/p>\n Earlier in August, academy graduate <\/span>Trevoh Chalobah<\/strong><\/b> was sold to Como in a deal worth \u00a331m ($42m), which represents pure profit, and goalkeeper <\/span>Filip Jorgensen <\/strong><\/b>headed to Strasbourg on loan, while wonderkid <\/span>Dastan Satpaev<\/strong><\/b> has signed a temporary deal with Burnley having completed his own move to Chelsea from Kairat Almaty after turning 18.<\/span><\/p>\n There are still a number of fringe players whom Chelsea are keen to shift either permanently or on loan, including defenders Benoit Badiashile (a target for Napoli), Axel Disasi and Mamadou Sarr, available-again winger Mykailo Mudryk and strikers Liam Delap (wanted by Nottingham Forest), Nicolas Jackson and Marc Guiu.<\/span><\/p>\n Although it’s been suggested that Alonso is otherwise happy with his first-team squad, there is significant uncertainty surrounding the future of Enzo Fernandez, <\/span>who is a target for Man City<\/span> following Rodri’s departure to Barcelona and Tijjani Reijnder’s move to Saudi Arabia. If City do meet Chelsea’s huge \u00a3120m ($162m) valuation, the Blues might be forced into the market to find a replacement before the deadline on September 1, with Bournemouth’s Alex Scott a potential option.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As was widely predicted, Chelsea’s decision-makers have veered away from their much-maligned youth-centric transfer model,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}