Chelsea transfer news: The Blues are set to take their spending over £800million under Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital.
Chelsea are close to spending £175million ($222million) on two players with less than 100 Premier League appearances between them and a combined age that falls just short of being younger than Thiago Silva. Welcome to modern football, the beautiful game in 2023.
It's the gamble that teams are taking. Prices across the board are sky high at an earlier stage than ever before. Lump on promise because assured quality is already out of our league. £80million ($101million) for Lucas Paqueta? Are you kidding?
The precedent is set, though. Brighton held firm for £100million ($124million) for Moises Caicedo and ended up with a guaranteed £115million ($145million) with £15million ($19million) in achievable add-ons. Decent work, lads. West Ham held out for Declan Rice, anyone would have thrown the kitchen sink at Jude Bellingham and Enzo Fernandez was taken down to deadline day and Chelsea caved.
Chelsea themselves rejected offers of £25million ($31million) for Conor Gallagher last summer and now want more than £50million ($64million) to split with him. That came after a largely inconsistent season in which he rarely showed his best. It no longer takes much to make clubs willing to spend the extra dollar on quality or promise.
When it comes to Lavia, the fee is believed to be around £60million ($76million) that Liverpool and Chelsea have reportedly reached an agreement with Southampton for. That alone is more than Saints had as the baseline for a sale, whilst the Blues first offered £48million ($60million), the Reds remained below the threshold until things went to a new level of crazy over the weekend.
To show just how remarkable this deal is, CIES football observatory values him at £17million, the same as Chelsea youngster Andrey Santos, who moved in January for less than £15million ($19million). The only players born in 2004 that are worth more on their list are Gavi, Youssoufa Moukoko, Vitor Roque, Rico Lewis, Evan Ferguson and Alejandro Garnacho.
That is esteemed company and the prices of the others may well reflect that but outside of Roque, none have moved for big money of the level of Lavia. What makes this even more mind-blowing is that before he moved to the south coast just over 12 months ago Transfermarkt had him valued at less than £2million ($2.5million), though that quickly shot up by the time he dominated Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea at St Mary's Stadium in September 2022.
Chelsea and Liverpool have both done their bit but by that what is really meant is caving in to the market demands and buying a player further down the progression path than anyone they could find for cheaper.
It's a damning state of affairs not only for the two clubs involved but also for football as a whole.