Proper Chels: an Inspired Revolution at the Hands of a Brilliant Spaniard
By Adam Jamison
Bienvenidos a todos to the 2026-2027 Premier League. I’ll be your host, Adam “Why Didn’t Chelsea Sign an Enzo Replacement” Jamison. Strangely pertinent nickname, I’m aware, but it’s a family name- comes from my grandfather. It’s got a nice ring to it.
As usual, we’ll start by checking the accuracy of my predictions from the previous article. While the predictions themselves mostly refer to Christmastime- there’s still plenty of time for Xabi to cook up a formation with seven wingers- my remarkable prescience struck twice in quick succession elsewhere. First of all, I remarked that I was “praying for Caicedo’s hamstrings already.” Clearly, to whomever and however I was praying to did not have the desired effect… much to think about there. Secondly, I foresaw that Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea would have an electric start to the season, just long enough to “get the fans to believe again.” I can personally attest to that, though I’m not sure exactly what it is I’ve been convinced to believe in. Perhaps it’s that I now believe that the possession stat is a lie and defending should always be optional as long as we’re scoring, but I digress. Still counts as some sort of belief. I’d prefer the 90-minute heart attacks that are Chelsea matches this season to the 1-0, 0-1, 0-0 doldrums of the Maresca era. Huh. Maresca. Wonder what he’s up to these days?
Now, onto the real meat and potatoes of the first article in a season: transfers, matches, general headloss, etc. With respect to transfers, I truly believe Chelsea had an incredible 78 days of the summer transfer window. Shipping out deadwood for unreasonably high sums, strengthening key parts of the pitch, allowing the manager to have a clear influence over it all- just really, genuinely lovely stuff. If someone had told me at the end of last season that we’d sell Delap for €52.5m, Jackson for €55.5m (bless Villa for taking Garnacho as well), and Santos for 56.3m, I would’ve turned to the bartender and told them I’ll have whatever you’re having. Not to mention Spurs paying a transfer fee for Uncle Tosin (who arrived at Chelsea on a free transfer) while taking Mudryk on loan? Yeah, no complaints here (as I try to hold in my laughter…). I’m not going to list every single departure (Cucurella, George, et al.), as this is Chelsea we’re talking about, and I don’t want to take up the next couple pages; but with regard to player sales, it was a fantastic 78 days.
In terms of incoming players as well, I have nothing but zealous, thunderous praise (humor me) for the Club and its sporting directors in those 78 days of the summer transfer window. Morgan Rogers has been worth every penny of his €138m price tag. If I had to describe him in a single word? Pure class. We’ve all seen his class when he was at Aston Villa, but watching him, Cole Palmer, and João Pedro in the attacking third this season has been poetry in motion. On the other end of the pitch, both Maxence Lacroix (€60.7m) and Emiliano Martínez (€8.75m) have slotted in perfectly into our defense (rest in peace Robert Sánchez, thanks for the seasono). Although, when I say “slotted in perfectly,” let’s all keep in mind that Chelsea have conceded twelve goals through the opening five matches, which, drumroll please, is bottom of the league for goals against. Not ideal, but I’d imagine that without these two and considering the way we’ve been playing, that figure could easily have been doubled. Unfortunately, the jury’s still out on new signing Marco Palestra (€57m), as he’s yet to feature in a competitive match for Chelsea this season due to injury (good thing he’s the only one, right?). There have been a number of other players brought in as well, though none at such a high price tag nor with such an immediate impact on the pitch. In an extraordinary turn of events, though, Chelsea also brought in veterans (the horror!) Jordan Henderson (free) and Danny Welbeck (€5.85m). Never thought I’d live to see the day, but players with heaps of Premier League experience are exactly the sort of thing the team has needed since BlueCo took over and subsequently decided to only sign players who couldn’t legally drive a car. And thus concludes Chelsea’s A+ rated 78 days of summer transfers.
The most shrewd and eagle-eyed amongst you (dearest readers) might have found it a bit strange that I continued to specifically refer to the ‘78 days of the transfer window’. That’s because the summer transfer window is actually 79 days long, and I was purposely ignoring one of those days. I trust you can figure out the implications of that yourself, but I will expand upon this point nonetheless.
As such, on that final, horrific 79th day of the transfer window, Chelsea finally completed the sale of Enzo Fernández (why do I hear hissing?) to Manchester City (where have I seen that name recently?) for a whopping €145m. To make a profit on a player like Enzo a couple years after (almost certainly) overpaying for him in the first place is fantastic business, to be entirely fair. Handshakes and cheers all around. Well done boys, good process. That being said, though, there seemed to be a slight problem with this deadline-day sale, in that it left the Club with a gaping Enzo-shaped hole in the midfield. As unfortunate- dare I say, counterintuitive- as it might be, a massive pile of cash in the midfield really isn’t great on the counter, marking its man on corners, playing through balls, or- you get the point. In the remaining hours of the summer transfer window following this sale, Chelsea pursued various replacements- most notably Lamine Camara from Monaco (this breakdown is worth a glance)- and ultimately failed to sign anyone. It’s a shame that no one had any idea that Enzo might leave Chelsea! Truly, a veritable lightning bolt of a sale, flashing into existence out of nowhere… except City spent half of the summer submitting bids that were summarily rejected, until the final day. Chelsea knew Enzo would leave this entire time; only the price remained uncertain. It’s inexcusable that the Club decided to wait until his official departure to seriously attempt replacement transfers, which were understandably all rejected by those players’ respective clubs. In the days following the closure of the transfer window, the typical Club PR statements were released, conveying the idea that everyone at the Club was satisfied with the remaining midfield options. Such statements are widely regarded to have aged like your dairy product of choice. As a mere fan, whose understanding of football and transfers surely pales in comparison to our nigh-omniscient sporting directors, I did think at the time that perhaps we needed to sign a replacement midfielder. Silly me.
Our discussion of the current, sordid state of the Chelsea midfield is a lovely segue for a brief (let me introduce you to the concept of an unreliable narrator) overview of Chelsea’s competitive matches so far this season. Up first: cup competitions. The two Carabao Cup matches could not have gone more differently. First, a professional 2-0 handling of a surprisingly resilient Luton Town side- no complaints, experience for some of the younger players, all-around solid. Then, we had an electric (any by electric, I mean that I needed a defibrillator around 70’) comeback against Leeds United, where Chelsea won 6-3 via six goals in the second half, courtesy of halftime subs Reece James, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers, and Pedro Neto. Could you imagine what goes through a defender’s mind, seeing the likes of Palmer and Rogers coming on as subs when you’re already a bit tired? Personally, I’d rather not imagine that. I’ve got enough trouble getting to sleep as it is.
As for the league matches, well, this is where the midfield discussion rears its ugly, Enzo-shaped head. This is a midfield light on reinforcement, whose shortcomings have only been exacerbated by all 14 of Caicedo’s minutes in the league so far. Our first two matches were what I imagine would happen if you decided to play a match of football as if it were basketball. Real end-to-end stuff. Is that sort of football viable over the course of a season? Almost certainly not, but it is hugely entertaining… if you win, of course. After the 2-3 and 4-3 high-octane wins over Fulham and Brighton, we arrived at Arsenal. I really would have preferred to play them later in the season as clearly the manager and the players needed more time to marinate, if you will, but, you know what they say: if wishes were fishes we’d all have a nice dinner… or something. Although there were a few moments of questionable refereeing (Gabriel, Rice, etc.), Chelsea were soundly beaten 2-1. It was a (comparatively to previous showings) valiant effort and a hard-fought learning experience for the team. It also highlighted Chelsea’s midfield weakness. While, yes, I am ecstatic that somehow Roméo Lavia has finally figured out how to cure his glass bones and paper skin, a two-man midfield of him and Reece James is just not good enough to compete at the highest levels of football, especially considering how injury prone both of them are (put a pin in this). The memory of seeing Malo Gusto replacing Lavia in the midfield when we were down a goal and chasing the game gives me a headache to this day.
After an error-strewn 2-2 draw with Hull City in the league, we find ourselves at Chelsea’s final match before the international break: Brentford. It was a match that seemed doomed from the start, as Chelsea’s starting midfield was, due to injuries, a two-man pivot of summer transfers Valentín Barco (former Spy Kid) and Jordan Henderson; while up top, an injured João Pedro was replaced with another elder statesman in Danny Welbeck. The first half was decent, but the writing was on the wall, as Brentford cruised to a 3-0 win via three second-half scores. Hindsight is 20/20, but the necessity of an Enzo replacement was made brutally clear in this match, in case anyone somehow hadn’t caught on yet. As with any team, if all players are healthy, then yes, Chelsea has a fantastic starting XI with decent depth, an exciting attacking style, and a manager who has shown he’s not afraid to make changes as needed. The current reality for Chelsea is that our best players are out injured and we genuinely don’t have the quality to shore up our defenses (literally and figuratively). It’s impossible to reliably predict injuries in a squad, but it’s deeply irresponsible to fail to plan for their inevitable occurrence.
As I still have some ongoing predictions (namely, a seven-winger formation by Christmas), let me add another few, just for fun. First, if Moisés Caicedo isn’t fully healthy by January, Chelsea will find itself in lower mid-table (not outrageous considering we’re currently in 10th), most goals conceded with 10 more than the next-most, and we’ll drop at least €50m (conservative estimate) on a midfielder who won’t play a single minute once Caicedo comes back into the team- and next season, the new signing will be playing for Strasbourg.
Or, maybe after the international break, everyone’s fit, Xabi gets to fully realize his system with the best players at his disposal, and Chelsea seriously challenges for the title. Knowing my Club… there’s rarely any in-between there. Fingers crossed, prayers up to whoever’s listening (for the love of Caicedo’s hamstrings, I once again beseech you), and onto the next.
