Chelsea are a puzzling football club, they really are. I mean, the whole ‘crazy transfer fee’ thing in England is basically their fault. Roman started it. Yet, despite being Champions albeit in name only, they seem determined to replace their squad with players not as good as the ones they have, or even have out on loan. Ross Barkley, Danny Drinkwater, yes boys I am looking at you. It now turns out that Edin Dzeko isn’t even that keen to join having learned they’d have taken either Peter Crouch or Andy Carroll ahead of him. And while all this is going on, Michy B keeps scoring when actually given a chance.
Up in North London, Arsenal are hoping that Chelsea don’t realise that Olivier Giroud might actually be an upgrade on Chelsea’s current options and want to palm him off to Stamford Bridge once they finally confirm Borussia Dortmund’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Tottenham Hotspur want to persuade Paris Saint-Germain’s Lucas Moura that nobody really needs all that Chinese dollar and he should come and earn a much lesser wage in Tottenham’s pretty tight wage structure.
Beating Liverpool in the FA Cup seems to have gone to Alan Pardew’s head as he now wants to change the quick, dynamic approach they displayed to a “lump it up top to the overweight guy” approach by paying Watford £18m for Troy Deeney. That’s £1m for each stone of Troy’s frame.
Newcastle United “won’t be held to ransom” over the Feyenoord’s Nicolai Jorgensen which basically translates to “Newcastle United won’t pay a fair and reasonable price for Nicolai Jorgensen”.
“Stoke City will have to stump up the full £16m asking price for Galatasaray’s Badou Ndiaye” apparently, which has left many of us furiously Googling Badou Ndiaye and wondering if Stoke learned anything from the last time they paid a record fee for Imbula.
Back to Arsenal who think Jonny Evan’s horror show against Liverpool might have knocked a bit more off his asking price so that they can loan out Rob Holding to anyone who will have him.
Swansea City are hoping to have as many Ayew’s as wins this season as they hope to seal an £18m deal to re-sign Andre Ayew from West Ham United.
Graziano Pelle will replace Ayew apparently, and will join Joao Mario who has hopped to the Athletics Stadium from Inter.
Finally, who’d have thought Burnley’s Ashley Barnes would be a wanted man in the Premier League? Yes, Crystal Palace want him. They really, really do.