Chelsea and the 2014 January transfer window

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho

Jose Mourinho has mentioned time and again that this is not Chelsea’s year; that they are simply rebuilding the squad for the next season. He has stated on countless occasions that according to him it will be Manchester City who will win the league this year and that Chelsea will be challenging for the top spot once again the year after. All this while a lot of people believed that it was just a facade; a ploy to increase his own and the team’s credentials when they push for and win the title at the end of the year.The January window however, gave a lie to all of that. Mourinho was stating what he believed and what he knew was the truth all along. How exactly, then, did Chelsea fare in the transfer window?

Initially, it looked like it was going to be a very quiet month for Chelsea overall. However, there were murmurs that the Blues were in pursuit of Freddy Guarin from Inter Milan. This was the one that did not materialize. They went out and got themselves one of Portugal’s premier players – Nemanja Matic. The rumored fee was in the region of €26 million and considering that Matic is in fact one of the better midfielders in the world they seem to have got themselves a very nice deal.

All this while though their unhappy Belgian wonder kid Kevin DeBryune was being linked with a move away from Stamford Bridge. He went back to Bundesliga, the place where he has shone last season, with Wolfsburg and fetched a very nice €22 million. Considering they sold their sixth choice attacking midfielder and bought a premier deep midfielder (which was probably the most pressing need for them) for just €4 million, it seems like a fantastic bit of business.

After thrashing Manchester United 3-1, the Red Devils launched a bid to sign out of favour, back-to-back Chelsea player of the year Juan Mata. Chelsea quickly contacted, bid for and signed Mohammed Salah from Basel for £15 million to make sure that they wouldn’t be too light in attacking options. All this was completed in the span of 1 day and Mata was announced as a Red the next day. The emotional response of the fans notwithstanding, it was an absolutely brilliant offer for a fringe player. How often do you get £37.1 million for a player who is not even a part of the strongest 11?

Another player who left the club was Micheal Essien. The bison was nowhere near his best for the past couple of seasons and was finding it very tough to get any minutes in, so when AC Milan showed interest in signing the Ghana international, naturally he wanted to leave. The only catch was that Milan couldn’t really afford an Essien transfer. Chelsea, in light of the midfielder’s love for and contribution to the club, very graciously decided to terminate his contract so that Milan could sign him on a free transfer.Many might have thought that the Blues would go for a striker to lead the line, but they instead invested in Kurt Zouma from St. Etienne and loaned him right back to them. A strong singing for the future as Zouma is just 19 and has great potential.

Moving ahead to the low-key transfers, the club finally signed 18-year old Bertrand Traore – after almost 3 years of him being on trial- and quickly loaned him out to Vitesse Arnhem. Ryan Bertrand was loaned out to Aston Villa as being 3rd choice Left Back wouldn’t really grant him enough minutes on the pitch. Jonathan Muleba and Sam Walker; both Chelsea academy players; also signed permanent contracts elsewhere.

If there was one thing that this window taught us about Chelsea, its that they are serious about not going all out for titles this year. Building a team for the future seems to be the priority rather than to just go out all guns blazing in search of silverware this season. All in all, Chelsea got the players they wanted, sold the ones that weren’t very important and made a nice profit out of it. It was a very good transfer window from their perspective.

So to recap:-

OUT- Juan Mata, Kevin Debryune, Micheal Essien, Jonathan Muleba, Sam WalkerIN- Nemanja Matic, Mohammed SalahLOANED – Ryan Bertrand, Kurt Zouma, Bertrand Traore.

As far as a rating goes, this window was around 4/5 as many believe Chelsea could have done better, but the club got everyone they wanted and didn’t lose anyone they didn’t want to lose.