Chelsea Football Club will be pretty happy with their transfer dealings this January.

Today they waved ‘auf wiedersehen’ to World Cup winner Andre Schurrle and said ‘hola’ to Fiorentina’s wing wizard Juan Cuadrado.

Schurrle was a fringe player under Jose Mourinho at Stamford Bridge. He certainly has fantastic ability, could change games and grab goals but he didn’t do it consistently enough for Jose and would often start games from the bench. Schurrle’s underwhelming performance against Shrewsbury back in October probably sealed his fate. The wide-man will head back to Germany now and hope to help VLF Wolfsburg challenge Bayern Munich.

Cuadrado has been one of the highest rated players in the past year with Chelsea rivals Manchester United heavily linked with the player back in the summer. But the Viola managed to hold onto him until the London giants finally prised the twenty-six year old away from Florence. Juan was one of the World Cup’s best performers with his energy and creativity. Along with James Rodriguez, Cuadrado was a shining light for Colombia that helped them impress in Brazil.

Cuadrado was immense last season for Fiorentina, scoring eleven and assisting five times. The winger also helped Vincenzo Montella’s men to a fourth place finish in Serie A. This term, he has gained four goals and four assists. His dribbling ability, pace and his goals/assist record will have Chelsea fans drooling at the prospect of seeing him in a blue shirt.

Unlike Schurrle, Juan Cuadrado will hope to cement himself a regular first team spot. He’ll have the advantage of being extremely versatile. He can fill in at right-back, both wings, play in an attacking midfield central role and also up front from time to time. At Chelsea, they have Eden Hazard and Oscar as their main attacking creative talents but the position of right winger is still to be decided, in my opinion. Willian is a great worker but doesn’t change games enough. Schurrle and Mohamed Salah (who could join Fiorentina on loan) just couldn’t do enough to convince Mourinho that they merited more games (they only managed five EPL starts between them).

Now with all that said, look at the business that was done today. Chelsea offloaded squad player Schurrle for a £22m fee and then brought in a better replacement for an initial cost of £23.3m. Those numbers are extraordinary. That is a fine bit of business with Chelsea looking a lot better in terms of being a finished, well balanced side able to challenge for the League and Champions League titles this campaign.

You then think back to the summer and remember that they brought in Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa for a combine fee of around £6om. Both players have been superb, with Costa bagging seventeen goals and Cesc providing fifteen assists. They also signed Felipe Luis and Loic Remy (players that enhanced the squad) for a combined fee of around £26.5m. Bringing the total up to £86.5m.

Those deals were offset by Mourinho offloading the unpredictable David Luiz for a whopping £50m fee to French champions PSG and by the sale of Romelu Lukaku for £28m, a player that had spent the last two seasons out on loan to WBA and Everton. You then add the £4.7m fee they received from Besiktas for Demba Ba’s services and you get a total of £82.7m!

Chelsea also managed to get Fernando Torres, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole and Samuel Eto’o off the wage bill.

Those deals along with the transfers that were done today show that Chelsea are masters of the transfer market, getting big money in for players that they no longer need and bring in stars that will improve their squad for similar cash. Those type of deals are remarkable in this day and age of the Financial Fair Play (FFP) era.

Whilst teams like PSG, Barcelona, Manchester City, AC Milan, Inter and Monaco have struggled to deal with the new rules on spending, Chelsea have shown the rest of them just how it should be done.

When Jose Mourinho arrived back at Stamford Bridge he took a year to look over the squad he had and didn’t go crazy and add too many new faces. He assessed the players and then sold or got rid of those that were no longer any use to him and meticulously found players that would come in and improve the squad. He now has a superb side that can become a stronger force in both England and in Europe.

Well done Chelsea you still spend the mega Russian Rubles but it’s no longer recklessly and they now do it when it matters and make sure they sell-on the fringe players for maximum fees.

Posted on February 2nd, 2015 by scott
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