Todd Boehly and Chelsea’s next sporting director, whoever that is, will have two major transfer decisions to make at the end of the 2022/23 season.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!In the summer of 2021, Chelsea, the reigning European champions, are nearing the end of a club-record deal to bring Romelu Lukaku back to Stamford Bridge. The fee paid to Inter Milan is excessive (£97.5 million), but Marina Granovskaia is on track to recoup a similar amount through player sales.
Academy graduates have already been sacrificed for large fees: Fikayo Tomori to AC Milan for £25 million, Marc Guehi to Crystal Palace for up to £20 million, and Tino Livramento to Southampton for £5 million. Tammy Abraham is set to join Roma for £34 million, while Ike Ugbo is close to joining Genk for £5 million.
There are more homegrown departures, with Lewis Bate heading to Leeds United, Myles Peart-Harris heading to Brentford, and Dynel Simeu joining Southampton. To be sure, these aren’t transfers that will significantly boost the Lukaku transfer fund.
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In the present day, the Chelsea landscape looks very different. Roman Abramovich no longer owns the club, and Granovskaia has left. Petr Cech has stepped down as technical director. Even Thomas Tuchel, the mastermind behind the 2021 Champions League victory, has left.
Lukaku has also moved on. At least for the time being. After a season in which he suffered an ankle injury, gave a disastrous interview, fell out with Tuchel, lost his starting spot, and still managed to score 15 goals in all competitions, he returned to Inter on a season-long loan.
As things currently stand, the Belgian will return to Chelsea next summer. Whether that happens is up to new co-owners Todd Boehly, Behdad Eghbali, and Jose Feliciano, though sources close to the trio have suggested that an agreement for Lukaku to stay at Inter for a second year has already been outlined.
The striker’s future is not the only major decision that the Chelsea ownership will have to make ahead of the 2023/24 season. There are also two pending decisions on whether to repurchase two players sold by Granovskaia in order to fund the Lukaku signing.
Abraham is without a doubt the most well-known – and certainly the most expensive. Chelsea agreed to sell the academy graduate to Roma in exchange for a £67 million buyback clause that takes effect in July 2023. Given Abraham’s 30 goals in two seasons, Chelsea’s decision was understandable.
To the surprise of few, Abraham has continued to find the back of the net on a regular basis at Roma. The England international scored 27 goals in his debut season, helping Jose Mourinho’s side win the Europa Conference League.
This season, the 24-year-old has started slowly, scoring only two goals in Roma’s first eight games. However, any genuine doubts about his ability to score goals are long gone. The majority of Chelsea’s forwards, on the other hand, have struggled to produce consistently in the final third since Abraham’s departure.
Timo Werner, who scored just 11 goals last season, followed Lukaku out the door this summer. Kai Havertz finished the season with 14 goals, though only eight came in the Premier League. Meanwhile, Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech each had eight goals across all competitions.
Chelsea clearly needs a reliable goalscorer, and Abraham has proven that. Whether he would fit into Graham Potter’s tactical vision is debatable, and some may believe that investing more time and energy in Armando Broja, who is three years Abraham’s junior, is a better bet.
Boehly will have to make a decision on Abraham next summer, especially since a number of other clubs, including Premier League rival Arsenal, have expressed interest in the striker. That is also true for Livramento, another homegrown player Chelsea can bring back to Stamford Bridge.
The Blues never wanted to lose their Academy Player of the Year for 2020/21, but the reality is that they never did enough to persuade him to stay. As a result, when Southampton made an offer for the then-18-year-old, who had less than a year left on his contract, Granovskaia decided to sell.
She did, however, ensure that Chelsea could re-sign Livramento for a fee of £38 million in the summer of 2023. Again, this forces Boehly and Eghbali to make a choice.
What hasn’t helped them is that Livramento hasn’t played for Southampton since April due to a knee ligament injury. And the right-back isn’t expected back until early next year. That doesn’t give the Chelsea ownership much time to make a firm decision on whether he has fully recovered.
However, there are two factors to consider. The first is that, prior to his injury, Livramento appeared to have an easy transition to Premier League football. The 19-year-old impressed in his 28 Premier League appearances, prompting interest from Manchester United, Arsenal, and Tottenham Hotspur.
The second point to make is that Boehly, Eghbali, and Feliciano have already placed their trust in one young defender who is returning from a long-term injury: Wesley Fofana. Despite the fact that he only returned from a seven-month absence due to a broken leg in March, the Blues paid £70 million to sign the Frenchman from Leicester this summer.
Before signing, Fofana was flown to New York to undergo tests by doctors from the Los Angeles Dodgers, which are partially owned by Boehly. That strategy could be repeated if the club’s new ownership group decides to bring Livramento back to compete with Reece James, though he can also play on the opposite flank.
Re-signing both Abraham and Livramento would cost Chelsea £105 million, a hefty sum given the duo’s background at Cobham. However, Boehly has already stated his confidence in the plethora of academy graduates plying their trade at the highest level across Europe. He might think it’s a small price to pay.
