At the time of writing, Chelsea had just played out their fifth game under Guus Hiddink’s second interim reign with the Blues still unbeaten in his new spell.
That said, the sheer fact that a West Bromwich Albion side managed to twice peg last season’s Premier League champions back in an eventual 2-2 draw on Wednesday evening was pretty disappointing for a Stamford Bridge faithful who need victories on every occasion now to ensure they get out of the bottom half.
There’s absolutely no doubt that the experienced Hiddink has managed to get the majority of the team playing far nearer to their capabilities over the past month or so and the fact that the losing habit has been arrested is at least something to build upon.
Nevertheless, with Chelsea in 14th place on 24 points and hovering only six away from the relegation zone after gameweek 21, Hiddink has warned his players that the relegation threat is real this term.
At the moment, it’s hard to tell who Chelsea will be moving for in the January transfer window if anybody at all with no real concrete leads at the moment apart from potentially Shakhtar Donetsk’s Brazilian midfielder Alex Teixeira.
That’s why today, we’ve done the hard work for you while sifting through all of the Blues’ January transfer rumours heard by the bar so far while picking out five that we just can’t see happening this month.
[ffc-gallery]
Click on the image below to reveal the five Chelsea January transfer rumours that can be ruled out.
[/ffc-gallery]
Emmanuel Adebayor
Mainly fuelled by Harry Redknapp of late, current free agent Emmanuel Adebayor has been linked with a surprise transfer to Chelsea by the London Evening Standard.
While Radamel Falcao has been a disaster and Loic Remy looks surplus to requirements right now, surely Chelsea’s search for a new striker can’t be as desperate as swooping for Adebayor?
Having sinned Arsenal by then signing for Tottenham after Manchester City of course, you wouldn’t rule out the player accepting a deal at Stamford Bridge but surely Guus Hiddink and the Chelsea hierarchy believe they can do better than the Togolese frontman who was woeful in his latter days at Spurs.
More of a realistic striking addition seems to be Alexandre Pato whom The Telegraph and a number of other publications are claiming is already in talks over a move to the Blues this month.
Isco
Back on January 4th, Metro claimed Chelsea were lining up a second offer for Real Madrid’s Isco who hasn’t always been in Los Blancos’ starting eleven so far this season.
With Manchester City having also reportedly been in talks for the Spanish international, we think he’d be far interested in joining a club who are almost guaranteed Champions League football for next season.
In Chelsea’s current predicament, to land somebody such as Isco in January would be something of a coup and a positive that they can dig themselves out of the current mire.
However, all of that said, Isco’s frustrations were mainly aimed at Rafael Benitez who wasn’t picking him every week and with Zinedine Zidane now in charge after the Spaniard’s sacking, who knows, maybe his prospects may change altogether with the player potentially experiencing a change of heart?
Jonathan Calleri
Jonathan Calleri has been a South American-based name linked with a January transfer window switch to Chelsea for a little while now and back on December 8th, Metro compiled a story that claimed the Argentine had all but admitted he’d be on the move this month.
However, we don’t think it’ll be to Chelsea.
With Inter Milan now installed as the favourites for Calleri’s signature, we never truly believed a Blues switch was going to become a reality anyway given how long deals for South American-based players normally take.
If Chelsea’s Calleri interest was real, we would’ve already witnessed more concrete evidence that a work permit was being sought and what have you, and with just two weeks to go before the window closes, the Blues will potentially have to look to striking options closer to home.
Bojan
One of the small success stories of the season, we read earlier this month that Chelsea were interested in launching a £10 million bid for Stoke City’s dynamic forward Bojan.
Having set about rebuilding his reputation admirably at the Britannia Stadium, the Spaniard is a hot property again and reports claimed he could depart the Potters for a fee as little as £10 million this month given that is his apparent release clause.
However, Stoke City boss Mark Hughes was quick to come out and deny that no such clause for that amount of money exists in Bojan’s contract with the Potters surely deeming him not for sale at any price given their continued improvement.
We just can’t see it Chelsea fans.
Jamie Vardy
If the Bojan rumours didn’t look believable then the Jamie Vardy speculation was completely barmy, right?
Make no mistake; the England international has been in such sensational form this season that no English side could turn their nose up at his goalscoring exploits in their own team but surely he’s mature enough to keep his feet on the ground exactly where he is right now at Leicester City?
Even as recently as in midweek, we read in The Telegraph that Guus Hiddink has placed Vardy top of his January wishlist but we’ve heard time and again from Claudio Ranieri and co that the striker simply isn’t for sale at any price.
We really don’t think Vardy is going to jump ship from a title challenge into Chelsea’s armoury at the moment but if he made the step to a bigger team such as Chelsea, we think it could all go a bit Andy Carroll at Liverpool for him!
Big fish in a small pond and all that, that’s if you can even call the King Power Stadium a small pond any more!
