The Chinese Super League has been a subject widely discussed in the various booths around the Transfer Tavern, with this bartender having noted at least three separate sets of Chelsea fans talking about Diego Costa and the lure of all that cash in the Far East in the past week alone!
January was dominated on the transfer front in regards to the Blues by the Asian nation’s spending power, with both Oscar and John Obi Mikel lured away for vast fees, but it was the aforementioned Costa who really grabbed the headlines amid his ‘will he, won’t he?’ saga regarding a move to China.
As well all know, the Spaniard has stayed put and is continuing to bang in the goals for Antonio Conte as his side push on to get over the line and lift the Premier League title, but an interesting report from SFR Sport has revealed that the club told Tianjin Quanjian that an offer of €150m (£128m) will be enough for his services at the end of the summer, and considering the ludicrous spending over in the CSL it would be no shock to see this world-record-smashing deal come off.
If it does, Chelsea will have a whole heap of cash in their coffers with which they could secure multiple players to make Conte’s already fearsome XI even better. With that in mind, here are TWO essential buys should the Londoners cash in on Costa…
Romelu Lukaku
The biggest issue with Costa’s potential exit is sourcing a direct replacement. Michy Batshuayi having not started a single Premier League match since his £30m+ summer move to Chelsea hints that he isn’t held in high enough regard to be considered ‘ready’ to step into the starting XI as the main man, so there’s every chance an established player will be sought out.
Lukaku makes sense in that respect, with the Belgian having proven time and time again that he’s a top-class Premier League striker, and although there are shortcomings in his game, his goal-getting record is phenomenal – he’s the joint top scorer in the division at the moment. There’s the obvious caveat that he would be returning to the club that cast him away so readily earlier in his career, but his agent, Mino Raiola, was heavily involved in Paul Pogba heading back to Manchester United despite the same happening four years ago for the Frenchman, while reports last year indicated that Lukaku believes he has ‘unfinished business’ at Stamford Bridge.
Steven N’Zonzi
A few eyebrows in the Tavern have been raised at this suggestion, but N’Zonzi has been truly excellent since leaving Stoke to join Sevilla in 2015. The Frenchman was always seen as a capable and physically imposing central midfielder while with the Potters and Blackburn, but his game has come on in Spain, with the towering ace showing his technical prowess too – our friends over at FootballFanCast looked at his display vs. Leicester in the Champions League, which really summed this up.
Chelsea allegedly wanted N’Zonzi in the run-up to January and although he’s since penned a new deal in Seville, money talks in football and Chelsea can certainly offer the sort of cash that will make the shot-callers at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium sit up and take notice – they’re not adverse to selling their best players, after all. With Nemanja Matic’s mobility still a concern and Cesc Fabregas not the physical specimen that Antonio Conte’s team are often built around, the 28-year-old could slot in alongside N’Golo Kante to form one of the most imposing midfields in Europe.
