With four days left until the summer window shuts, there are plenty of Chelsea FC transfer rumors circulating in the Twitterverse, blogosphere, cyberspace and media world. It’s doubtful though that many, if any of those will actually materialize.
Reading in between the lines of what Chelsea Manager Antonio Conte had to say, I doubt anyone hugely noteworthy will be coming to/leaving from Stamford Bridge between now and deadline day.
“We didn’t refuse to spend the money for the right targets,” Conte said. “The situation is that the target is not available to buy and to spend the money on.
“Then I also told [them] that I’d prefer to spend a lot of money on the right great player, not on a medium player.”
Earlier this summer, Conte made it clear that he finds the current market prices for players to be exorbitant and crazy (it is, but again it’s that way for every club), and that he wasn’t going to allow Chelsea to be held ransom to such crazy prices.
Chelsea made two big buys, spending more than £60 million, on N’Golo Kante and Michy Batshuayi, but got rejected by AC Milan in their £35 million offer for centre-back Alessio Romagnoli.
Conte vented his frustration in having seen the Blues rejected so much this window, and offered a potential way forward,
“We must understand that, now, in England every team has money,” Conte explained. “So you have to solve the problem with hard work.
“Sometimes you could solve the problem with money. Now you have to solve the problem with work. But that’s fine. I have no problem. Work is the bread and butter.”
“Something is changing. It’s very strange, this, but something is changing.”
Conte seems accepting of the fact that he has to try and get Chelsea back into the top four, and potential title contention, with the squad that he already has. He realizes that there are no quick fixes available to him in the transfer market.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.