The Newcastle Chronicle are reporting that Chelsea are interested in signing Newcastle United captain Jamaal Lascelles.

While I like Lascelles and think he’s a good defender, I just don’t think he’s necessarily a player that would fit into this current Blues team and work well in Maurizio Sarri’s system.

We all know that the Italian coach likes to see his teams playing with a nice high tempo, passing style. He wants to have players that are good with the ball at their feet and that includes his defenders.

This season Jamaal has had a 72% passing success rate in the Premier League, only one Chelsea player has had a worse record than that and that’s French centre forward Olivier Giroud. All of his regular defenders have had higher than 86% successful passing stats thus far this term.

Even Sarri’s two backup centre-backs, Gary Cahill and Andreas Christensen, have on average enjoyed passing success rates of 95+% in the Europa League.

In his last five seasons, Lascelles has averaged 78% in his passing stats. That simply won’t do at Chelsea and he would need to improve it by at least 7% before he’d be considered good enough to get a regular chance in Sarri’s starting line-up.

The Newcastle Utd defender has better stats when it comes to winning aerial battles and making clearances but that isn’t really what Chelsea need in a defender or what Maurizio Sarri would be looking for. If it was then I’d expect Cahill to be making more starts in the league.

Jamaal is a passionate centre back, who will give his all for the cause. He can be a leader and he is good enough to be playing for a Premier League club higher in the table but not a free flowing side like Chelsea, in my opinion. He’s maybe more a fit for Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United side.

I also doubt that The Magpies would be willing to sell their star defender at this precarious time. The team are currently in the bottom three of the league table and unless they dramatically improve, I’d expect them to still be in trouble come January.

That transfer window for Newcastle United will be about bringing new recruits in to improve their squad and not losing their influential captain.

People are speculating that Chelsea might be eyeing up English talent to fill their homegrown quota but certain players have to be wary of that.

It wouldn’t do twenty-four year old Jamaal any good going to Stamford Bridge and not playing regularly.

So all in all, I don’t think a transfer involving Chelsea, Newcastle United and Lascelles would be great business for anyone involved unless it’s about lining pockets and filling quotas!

Posted on October 31st, 2018 by scott
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