Reinforcements or just player shuffling?
Chelsea look set to possibly reinforce our center back options with the recall of Aarón Anselmino from Borussia Dortmund, as per an exclusive this evening from The Athletic. The report stops short of claiming that Anselmino’s about to join the first-team, with Chelsea still “evaluating the centre-back market”, but surely we would not be bringing him back from a good situation at BVB unless we had a (better) specific plan for him.
(I know, that may be a rather naïve statement from yours truly; I still recall a similar situation unfolding with Nathan Aké back in 2017, well before the current decision-makers had ever even thought about injecting themselves into our lives, and that certainly didn’t turn out in our favor. But I saw a human man scale a 508-meter tall building without any ropes or safety devices yesterday, so perhaps I’m being optimistic about our species at the moment.)
In any case, lending further credence to the possibility of Anselmino staying with Chelsea for the second-half of the season are the reports of Stade Rennais apparently rejecting our approach for their highly rated young defender Jérémy Jacquet. Chelsea had reportedly come to terms with the 20-year-old but it would seem that we have failed to agree terms with his club. Considering that Rennes were (and probably still are) said to be looking for in excess of €60m, that’s not surprising. Fabrizio Romano says that we will be back in the summer, but there may be a bidding war by then, so we’ll see. (Or perhaps we’ll try to arrange a deal now, for the summer?)
In any case, Anselmino looks to be coming back. He’s done very well at Dortmund though a full season probably would’ve been useful. That said, considering our frequency of injuries at the position — not to mention the frequence of relatively poor performances — he may indeed get a chance to prove himself now.
Category: General Sports
