Chelsea fans have really gone through it these past few months, watching the club go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, celebrating having the transfer ban overturned, reading reports of a mass spending spree, to then going through January signing nobody.
To top that off, they watched their manager play the last ten minutes of the their 2-2 draw against Leicester City at the weekend without a recognised striker, when Lampard opted to bring Ross Barkley on for Tammy Abraham, rather than use striker Michy Batshuayi.
A message to the board? Debatable, but possible. Lampard is clearly a frustrated man. He asked for reinforcements in January, the board failed to deliver.
One player who was being talked about was Dries Mertens from Napoli, but their owner Aurelio De Laurentiis blocked that move right away, according to The Athletic.
They describe this move as a ‘non-starter’ from the off, but also say that Chelsea made this approach ‘before Christmas.’
Well, the silver lining here is I guess it was better than the rushed panic buy that the media made it look out to be at the time.
[morestries]
