JUVENTUS are interested in signing Ramires and Juan Cuadrado as Chelsea employ the final days of what Jose Mourinho calls the “opportunity window” to retool their squad.
Pedro’s acquisition for an initial £20.3m from Barcelona has left Mourinho’s squad heavy on players comfortable on the right side of the attack, encouraging Juventus in their parallel pursuits of Ramires and Cuadrado. Colombia winger Cuadrado has failed to establish himself at Chelsea since Mourinho used some of the funds raised by the winter sales of Andre Schurrle and Ryan Bertrand to bring him from Serie A.
Ramires, who was essentially the first reserve to the uncharacteristically small group of players Mourinho deployed as regular starters last season, is often used as a more defensively minded right winger. Juventus want the Brazilian to restock a midfield depleted by Andrea Pirlo’s departure to the MLS and Arturo Vidal’s sale to Bayern Munich. They are offering to take Cuadrado on a season’s loan, possibly with a guaranteed option to buy.
Mourinho’s view is that his squad was overstretched last season, that all Chelsea’s major opponents have spent aggressively (and many of their lesser ones astutely), and that to achieve the club’s targets he needs a larger group, not a smaller one. While he would be prepared to sacrifice an individual like Cuadrado to raise cash for the priority position of centre back, he does not want to send the South American out on a low-income generating loan. Juve could convince Mourinho by wrapping Cuadrado, Ramires and Oscar (another player coveted by their coach Massimo Allegri) into a football agent’s dream of a transaction for Paul Pogba, but there would be significant obstacles.
First, Juve promised Allegri that the club’s principal asset would remain under his management for one more season – Vidal and Pirlo’s exits were predicated on this. Second, Juve want the expected £72.5m of income from Pogba’s planned sale to hit their balance books in a year’s time; not now, when the club is flush with the revenue from last season’s run to the Champions League final. Third, the Italian champions already have a lucrative deal in place to sell the France midfielder to Barcelona, a club prevented by a FIFA transfer ban from registering Pogba in the current window anyway.
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There is also the matter of Pogba’s salary demands. Barca set up their agreement with Juve without accepting the agent Mino Raiola’s requirement that his client financial terms be tripled to £8.7m a season, after tax. A re-emboldened Roman Abramovich could meet such a figure, but only by ripping up the break-even strategy of recent years. And the club still has a new stadium to build.
While Mourinho – the only manager to win the Premier League on a net negative spend on transfer fees - wants investment in the squad, he has long shied away from buying at the very top of the market. In his current spell at Chelsea, the highest fee is Diego Costa’s at just over £30m. His most expensive purchase at Real Madrid was Angel Di Maria for £18.1m plus £7.9m in variables. And at Inter Milan he won the Champions League with a negative net spend.
Chelsea’s desperate need for a central defender may see John Stones exceed Diego’s price, yet even the England premium involved in extracting Stones from Everton should not amount to half the sum Ed Woodward has been offering around Europe in his quest to inflate Manchester United’s transfer record. With Stones it has become a case of needs must.
For all his ability with a ball at his feet, John Terry was never a quick footballer. Chelsea’s dependence on the 34-year-old alongside Gary Cahill limits Mourinho’s tactical options against stronger opposition; thus limiting his team’s chances in the Champions League.
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If Mourinho wants his players to press the opposition in their own half, he does so in full awareness of Terry’s discomfort operating a high line and the risks of Cahill’s attention-deficit marking. Cesar Azpilicueta will do his utmost to cover for Terry’s shortage of pace, but such diligence costs Chelsea in the ability to attack from left back. For those reasons, Mourinho considered starting at Manchester City with Kurt Zouma, preparing for the game with his captain in the B team. Terry’s half-time substitution in Manchester shocked observers more than it did the defender himself.
If the defence of the title depends on rebuilding a defence, at West Bromwich Albion today, Mourinho is even considering the prospect of another loss before that restructure can be done.
“If we lose we go to eight points difference to a couple of teams,” he said. “Eight points in England is 80 points in other leagues, because in other leagues, eight points is an eternity. It’s very difficult in other leagues for teams to lose points. In England, teams lose points... We can afford to lose.”
No longer, though, can they afford not to spend.