Why Transfer Ban May Be Good for Chelsea

Quick fixes aren’t available, and that will force the club to do things the old fashioned way.

---

Earlier this month, Chelsea was in the thick of things once again–this time for getting a one-year transfer ban. The ban means that the club won’t be active in two upcoming window transfers. They can only sell and receive players who will be coming back from loans.

The news was not well received by team fans. They see it as a harbinger of bad things, a reversal of tradition with 15 trophies won since Roman Abramovich took over the team. But I see it differently.

1. OFFLOADING PLAYERS THAT ARE 30+: The owner, Roman Abramovich, and chair, Bruce Buck, can now revisit their rule that players over thirty years of age should be given one-year contract extensions. If applied, the rule would affect Olivier Giroud, Gary Cahill, David Luiz, Gonzalo Higuain, Pedro, and Willian. Those players could be offloaded, making way for fresh legs in the persons of Ethan Ampadu, Loftus Cheek, Andreas Christensen, Hudson Odoi, and others who will be returning from loans.

2. CHANCE TO EMBRACE FOR HOME-GROWN TALENT: The transfer ban means Chelsea will have to look at home-grown talent.

Consider this. Mohammed Salah, Kevin de Bruyn, Romelu Lukaku, Declan Rice, and Nathan Ake–all of whom have all gone on to become global figures elsewhere–once dawned the Chelsea shirt. If the current crop of young players are given an opportunity to play together for a year or two, who knows how good they can be? Remember how the combination of Cech, Terry, Ivanovic, Makelele, Essien, Ballack, Lampard, and Drogba used to click? The manager didn’t have to do much before this group fused. Imagine where the Monaco squad of Djibril Sidibe, Mendy, Bakayoko, Mbappe, Fabinho, Falcao and Bernado Silva would have evolved together had these players not been snatched up by big teams. With that, Chelsea should now take heed of the words of Wole Soyinka: “A hand that digs into the bottom of the pot is a hand that will come out with a big snail.”

3. BREAKING THE ACCOUNT ON WRONG PLAYERS: Thankfully, Chelsea will be able to avoid spending a wad of money on players that either turned out as flops or never did justice to their price-tags. It’s no secret that Chelsea broke their account on wrong players, players like Fernando Torres, Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko, and Danny Drinkwater.

4. THE SANCTIONING OF HAZARD: It’s no secret that organizations are built around certain individuals. That’s certainly the case with Chelsea and Eden Hazard. Perhaps that’s one reason why his sanction might not go down well with a lot of people. Hazard, a colossal figure at Chelsea, fought with everything he had whenever the team was in need. Hazard only has a year left on his contract come season end, and Chelsea can’t risk losing such a big fish for free. I mean there is already Hudson Odoi knocking on the door with mouthwatering performances week-in-and-week-out to catch the attention of the coach.

***************

So, at least the way I see it, the transfer ban might be the best thing that could have happened to Chelsea. Quick fixes aren’t available, and that will force the club to do things the old fashioned way.