EXCL: Chelsea busy working on deals, Pochettino seeking proven PL quality, Caicedo, Martinez, Onana, Mount, Kovacic, Kante, and Pulisic updates...
The Ben Jacobs Chelsea FC column - Transfer Special!
Chelsea are bracing themselves ahead of the transfer window opening for a busy summer. Outgoings remain vital, even if they aren't as exciting to fans as incomings.
It may feel like it's been a quiet few days before the window officially opens. But often when things go silent, it means stuff is advancing behind the scenes.
Mauricio Pochettino officially comes in on July 1. But of course, he'll be well across the three weeks or so before he formally joins. The new Chelsea boss is very much inheriting a transfer strategy. He’ll play a big part in it, but it’s still worth pointing out that Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley are pulling the strings.
Chelsea's first window was kind of the Todd Boehly show. January was more collaborative with a recruitment team evolving. Now I sense Boehly, and to a lesser extent Behdad Eghbali, will take a step back, at least on the recruitment-strategy side. They may still be involved in any final negotiations. But Stewart and Winstanley are the two most accountable people in terms of picking targets.
Pochettino was hired because he buys into the model. So any suggestion that he is suddenly going to call all of the shots is wide of the mark. But what will happen is his desire for proven Premier League quality will be taken into account, and he wouldn't have accepted the job unless he had confidence that enough outgoings will happen to give him a manageable squad size.
