In quite a fun little exercise, the Athletic gathered together 20 top agents and made them vote for their best and worst signing of the transfer window.
Chelsea spent more than anyone else, and refreshed almost their entire squad. So they’ll have a few in the top ten right? Wrong. They have one – and it’s not who you expect. In a category dominated by James Maddison, who got 9 votes, young striker Deivid Washington is the only Blue to get a mention.
On the worst signings, sadly there’s a much stronger Chelsea representation. Moises Caicedo, considered overpriced, got 5 votes, putting him in second place.
“I’m a bit nervous about the Caicedo [transfer]. Chelsea’s not a great place for players to go right now. There’s so much flux. It’s not because Caicedo’s a bad player. But he’s come from such a good, organised system and structure at Brighton where players can really flourish, and gone to a team that’s had so much change,” one of the agents was quoted as saying.
Cole Palmer also got a mention, simply because of the price paid compared to a relative lack of experience.
Overall, it’s not the results you want to see after a summer of spending, but it will be conditioned heavily by the results so far. If Chelsea are back in the top 4 at the end of the season, things will poll very differently.
Results like Brighton’s don’t happen overnight. Same is true at Arsenal, where supporters called for Arteta’s head more than once in his first season. It seems like a cop out on the part of these agents to admit Caicedo is the real deal talent wise, but to then rate it a poor transfer based on the performance of the club. Makes no sense to me. Logically, after we let go of Kante we had to bring in a proven ball-winner and Caicedo is incomparable at his age. It’s a top drawer signing—full stop. Seems to me these agents are being contrarian just to have something interesting to say.