Jamie Carragher has shredded Chelsea‘s transfer policy – urging players to give the chaotic Blues a wide berth.
New manager Enzo Maresca has been in the thick of it, with a wild summer seeing nine new faces come through the doors and 13 shown the exit, with Joao Felix on the brink of a whopping £36million switch from Atletico Madrid. The result? Chelsea have got a 43-man squad that’s more packed than the Tube at rush hour.
Maresca had to snub 23 first-team players from his team when they took a tumble 2-0 against Manchester City last Sunday. And with Felix nearly in the bag, the boss is staring down the barrel of an almighty selection migraine, not to mention the brewing storm over who gets to lace up their boots on matchday, with Raheem Sterling releasing a controversial statement after he was left out.
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Chelsea aren’t pulling punches on their signing spree, but Carragher’s serving up some tough love himself to any player thinking about hitching a ride to Stamford Bridge and he’s throwing shade at Todd Boehly and the Blues bigwigs calling the shots in the transfer market, reports the Mirror.
“Chelsea have just got to stop buying players and players have got to stop signing for Chelsea. I don’t know why, if I was a player, I’d look at Chelsea and sign,” the Liverpool legend turned pundit blasted on Sky Sports.
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“The only reason you might is if your agent says ‘we’re getting a seven year deal on big money’ – it’s guaranteed money. You know what I’d say – back yourself as a player, sign a four-year deal at a proper club, back yourself to do well.
“Then when you’re up for renewal your money goes up anyway. I don’t understand why players are signing seven-year deals. There isn’t anything there. It is not a young and exciting team. They’ve just signed Joao Felix – tell me where he’s going to play.
“They signed Neto a week ago – where is he playing when you’ve got Cole Palmer? Great football teams need competition. But every team I played in, there were seven or eight players who knew they were playing every week.”
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“Then you’ve got seven or eight players who are fighting for three positions. Then you’ve got another six players who are squad players. That is a healthy squad. What Chelsea have got now, where’s Felix going to get changed at the training ground. If you’ve got 40 players – how are you in one dressing room? How are you putting a training session on?”
Carragher seems sceptical about Chelsea spilling cash like water in the transfer market, whereas boss Maresca reckons his team did the business against City, loss aside. The gaffer’s all guns blazing about the path they’re on, despite losing to Pep Guardiola’s champions.
“I thought our performance was good. We don’t like to lose but I thought the performance was there. We competed against the best team in the world and we competed for large parts at the same level and in some moments were even better,” Maresca said.
“I said the other day that I didn’t expect the team to already be this [far] ahead so the direction is a good one and I don’t have any doubt that day by day we are getting better and we are going to have days where we win games and we will be happier.”