Chelsea are taking a tough stance on signing new players this summer. They will not be held to ransom in negotiations anymore, or as a club source put it to me, ‘have their pants pulled down’ anymore.
This is good in general, of course, we don’t want to be seen as weak in negotiations and that we will just always overpay for a target. But operating this way can also create many problems. It needs balance.
If you are going to operate like this as well, then surely you have to be consistent with it?
Sky Germany are reporting that Dortmund want £55m for Jamie Gittens this summer. Now, the source is not great so it’s important to reiterate that others are saying it’s less than this and this fee may not be true. So I am clearly saying here that IF this is true and they will only accept that for Gittens, then surely we should be walking away?
If we walked away from Mike Maignan for £25m, then I’ll be completely miffed if we the ended up paying £55m for a hugely unproven 20-year-old with around 80 senior appearances to his name and ZERO senior international caps or call-ups so far.
Don’t get me wrong, Gittens has talent, and a lot of it. But he’s even a bench player for Dortmund this season and is still super raw still. He’s far from complete.
Maignan for £25m is a bargain no matter how anyone tries to spin it. I reiterate, not one person would tell us we had our pants pulled down if we signed a top class goalkeeper with 32 caps for France and almost 400 senior appearances to his name in club football, regardless of whether he has a year left on his contract or not. In some situations you just need to pay and not speak and worry less about ‘being tough negotiators’ or whatever.
I agree that overall it is a good stance to take, but not every situation is the same and we need to be much smarter here.
I think anything over £40m is too much for Gittens personally. I mean, we are apparently only asking for £25m for Djordje Petrovic who had some of the best goalkeeping stats in Europe last season, is a full Serbian international, and has almost 200 senior appearances to his name, just deep that for a moment.
I want to reiterate, I’m absolutely not against signing Gittens, I think he has a lot to offer and is actually a good profile for what Enzo Maresca wants. But he’s hardly a needle mover for right now.
We are in the Champions League next season, NOW is the time to GET SERIOUS in the market.
Oh and before anyone asks, as reported, Chelsea are expected to go back to try again for Maignan later in the window, but I’ll believe it when I see it because I’m still hearing they will stick to their valuation if they go back for him (yikes).
