Why Chelsea can't make triple January sale – 25 year old midfielder's loan could be put on ice until deadline
Yesterday at 05:30 PM
Today we've seen quite concrete links from Simon Johnson at the Athletic connecting Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall with a move to West Ham on loan until the end of the season.
He's not playing at all at Chelsea – in fact he even missed out on some B team games, showing just how far down the pecking order he is.
Meanwhile Cesare Casadei is also being strongly linked with a move away. Torino have apparently had a £10m bid turned down, but are expected to return with another, larger effort.
The case of Carney Chukwuemeka is similar – he's not wanted at Chelsea, not getting in the squad enough to justify keeping him, and is very much up for sale. In both of these latter cases, the Blues will strongly prefer a permanent transfer, simply because they want to cash in rather than watch their assets potentially depreciate further.
Dewsbury-Hall is available for loan seemingly only because he arrived in the summer and thus has plenty of contract left to run – selling him for more than we bought him 6 months ago would also be a big hit to PSR, as well something of an admission of a mistake by the sporting directors.
Sales are a priority – but all 3 can't go
None of these 3 central midfielders are getting in the team – or often the squad. It makes total sense to sell or loan one, maybe two. But we're pretty certain that all 3 won't be let go, even if the Blues get what they want for all of them.
We're thin in midfield already, and despite the fact these guys aren't the right profile we need to cover for Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo, they can at least fill in in cup games, as we will likely see against Morecambe this weekend.
So if it looks like there could be a permanent deal done for Chukwuemeka and Casadei, expect KDH's loan move to be put on ice until later in the window – and ultimately cancelled if the other two go.
