In the Football Transfer Tavern, it is very rare that consensus is reached amongst Chelsea fans regarding a topic concerning their club.
However, following the club’s official signing of Radamel Falcao on loan from Monaco last week, 99.9% of Chelsea fans would rather Jose Mourinho and the Blues board didn’t bother!
After enduring a simply awful loan spell at Manchester United last term, not to mention a fairly quiet Copa America to boot, Chelsea fans aren’t expecting Falcao to morph back into his former lethal goalscoring self any time soon.
With Falcao having been one of the best strikers in world football only a few seasons back, the Colombian is now under more scrutiny than ever before and on the face of it, Chelsea doesn’t seem like the most forgiving environment if it all starts to go wrong again.
The man nicknamed El Tigre will have to hit the ground running and prove himself to be better than the likes of Fernando Torres or Andriy Shevchenko, otherwise the boo boys might be out in full force.
However, with the tabloids still continuing to link Chelsea with numerous transfer targets, who else could be following the Colombian into Stamford Bridge this summer?
Here’s five names that could well be completing a transfer to West London while the window is still open for business.
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Click on the image below to reveal the 5 players to follow Radamel Falcao to Chelsea this summer.
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Asmir Begovic
Stoke City’s Asmir Begovic is fully expected to become a Chelsea player in the near future with punters in the tavern expecting a deal to be concluded as early as this week.
With Petr Cech now having regrettably sold to London rivals Arsenal, the Blues have been in the market for a new understudy to Thibaut Courtois and it seems as though they’ve settled on Bosnian international Begovic.
More than capable having performed over 150 times for the Potters in the Premier League, Chelsea are receiving a reserve goalkeeper who is even better than Liverpool’s first choice in Simon Mignolet, claim our Blues punters!
This will be a good deal for Chelsea but as for Begovic on a personal note, having been used to first team football so readily in recent seasons, he’ll need to get used to the bench for the foreseeable future.
Arda Turan
The speculation regarding Arda Turan’s future is reaching fever pitch right now with the Turkish international probably the most talked about transfer target at the minute.
If you believe what you read in the papers, the Atletico Madrid man is currently in a tug of war between Chelsea and Barcelona with Manchester United still being mentioned in some quarters.
The latest from Metro today is that despite Barcelona being keen on landing Turan, the player will reject a move to the Spanish champions in favour of moving to the Blues.
The same reports claim that Turan will be departing the Vicente Calderon if his £29.2 million buy-out clause is met and you’d imagine that Chelsea would be keen on getting a deal done with Juan Cuadrado and Mohamed Salah having not endeared themselves to Blues fans since their respective arrivals.
If Turan did end up a Chelsea player, he would resume a link-up with Diego Costa with the pair complimenting each other perfectly in Atletico Madrid’s La Liga title winning season of 2013/14.
Mario Gotze
Perhaps a long shot of a Chelsea signing but at the moment, the papers are awash with reports that Mario Gotze is far from happy with his current situation at Bayern Munich.
Not considered an indispensable cog in Pep Guardiola’s plans like players such as Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery, The Express recently reported that the German international’s agent has slammed the Bavarian club.
We saw in the past in the case of Arsenal that nobody thought Mesut Ozil would be leaving Real Madrid in the summer of 2013, only for the player to then join the Gunners at the last minute on deadline day and perhaps Gotze could be completing a similar switch this time around.
A lot would of course depend on the future of Oscar who is continuing to interest long-term admirers Juventus and after his below par performances last term, at the moment Chelsea fans see Gotze as an upgrade on the Brazilian in that sought-after number 10 role.
Antoine Griezmann
The talk of a summer Chelsea switch for Antoine Griezmann has died down of late with it looking far more likely that Atletico Madrid will cash in on the aforementioned Arda Turan rather than the Frenchman.
Previously, the talk was that an ‘extraordinary’ offer from Chelsea would give Atleti no option but to sell but it increasingly looks as if the Spanish club will hold onto the services of Griezmann for another season at least.
That said, we’d be lying if we claimed remarkable turnarounds in football never happen and despite Jose Mourinho previously declaring that Chelsea have no interest in Griezmann, you can imagine that the Blues have been taking a look at him behind the scenes.
With much more action to take place in the transfer window, don’t rule out a transfer for Griezmann just yet.
Munir El Haddadi
He hasn’t been talked about greatly in the transfer window so far but more and more stories concerning the Barcelona youngster have come to the surface in recent days.
The speculation is that Arsenal and Chelsea are battling it out to secure the Spanish international cap on loan with the youngster facing the prospect of having to break the partnership of Barcelona’s famous MSN of Messi, Suarez and Neymar.
With El Haddadi still rated incredibly highly at the Catalan club, they believe he will come good and become a staple part of their team in future seasons, hence why a loan makes sense at this stage of his career.
Right now, Arsenal are considered favourites for Munir’s signature but Chelsea are still being placed into the column inches so watch this space.
