Not Perfect, But Positive: Assessing Chelsea's Summer 2025 Window

It wasn't 10/10, but the squad HAS improved

I’ve been quiet on this site this summer, taking some time away for personal reasons, but also because I wanted to wait till the transfer window closed to really assess where Chelsea are as a club and the squad we’ve built.

As anyone who reads this site knows, I’ve been very hard on the Sporting Directors at times. In January this year I berated them for not signing a striker, a CB or dealing appropriately with the midfield situation. And although it worked out, those criticisms were absolutely fair at the time.

The way they treated Trevoh Chalobah was another disgrace, they managed him abysmally and then had to bring him back. Now he’s clearly won them over, and huge credit to Trev for the dignity, class and professionalism he’s shown when many wouldn’t.

I point all this out, because I’ll never hesitate to call out the Sporting Directors when they mess up. I want what’s best for Chelsea, I’ll never blindly defend anyone over the good of the club.

They’ve drawn a lot of criticism recently for their handling of the Xavi Simons situation and their end to the window, and some of that’s been deserved too. With Simons, allowing fan expectations to grow and agree terms only to not even bid, to me, is poor. It left a sour taste in the mouth, and was totally unnecessary.

Then we have the striker situation. I can’t blame the Sporting Directors here, because no one could foresee the injury to Liam Delap. He’s not had many injuries in his career and played only 37 games last season for Ipswich, far less than most Chelsea players have played. So even the CWC reason isn’t quite as strong with him.

That said, I hope he will be back at least for the second half of season and of course we know he’s here for the long term. He’s only 22, and I think he’ll prove to be a top signing for us and he impressed in the games he played before his injury.

Its last minute unexpected situation which no one could plan for. Very few, if any, elite teams have more than two strikers nowadays. Having two strikers with little serious injury history, who didn’t play as much as most of our squad last year, you expect that to be enough to get you through the season. But hamstrings are tough to predict, and so it makes sense to adapt and get another body up front, which has turned out to be Marc Guiu.

Many have criticised Guiu or said he’s not good enough, but last year he impressed me with his attitude and work ethic, and was close to getting a run in the first team before his injury. It's important we back him and give him a chance to impress.

But again, people defaulted to directing their anger at the Sporting Directors, like they could predict Delap would get an injury. We simply can’t have endless depth options, it costs too much and if there’s no injuries the depth options barely play. Having two players for each position is how it should be, and what we had. It's just an annoying situation, sometimes there’s no one to blame, it just sucks.

One area these Sporting Directors have been a wild success is sales. Chelsea have made world record sales this summer, £323.5m, including Jackson’s gigantic loan fee, not including the undisclosed fee for Ben Chilwell to Strasbourg.

Many of these sales with huge sell on clauses too, getting fees people wouldn’t have expected for some players. Overall we’ve made a net profit in the transfer window which was necessary under the terms of our agreement with UEFA. One thing we can conclusively say is Chelsea are one of the best in terms of player sales.

What I find absolutely laughable is the idea we’ve had an average or poor window in terms of incomings. I’ve even seen people saying it was “the worst window in Chelsea history” which is simply a joke. Clearly they weren’t around in the early 90s or in 2017 when we signed Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Morata and Zappacosta.

People have taken their disappointment at the end of the window, which is completely understandable, and applied this to the whole window. You’d honestly think we were a squad in relegation trouble, not one who just won the World Cup, and that we’d added garbage, not talented players, some with PL experience too.

For clarity, Chelsea have added Liam Delap, Joao Pedro, Jamie Gittens, Alejandro Garnacho, Estevao, Andrey Santos, Dario Essugo, Jarrol Hato and Facundo Buonanotte to the squad this summer, at a cost of about £319m. This amount also includes Mamadou Sarr, who went out on loan to Strasbourg. Most of those are big talents or top players who improve us in key positions.

In my view our squad is, without doubt, stronger than it was last season, especially in attack and midfield. Not getting Mike Maignan can arguably be seen as a failure given the numbers involved, and I think this deal should have been done. It’s the biggest failure of the window for me, and criticism is deserved here. At the same time, they see Mike Penders as our long term number one, so it is likely only a short term setback. Indeed Maignan could be available on a free transfer next summer, so its something we may revisit.

Ideally we’d have signed a CB too, and Enzo Maresca did want one. However I feel a tad of sympathy for the club here, as this was complicated by needing to sell a CB from our A list, in order to meet the contract we signed with UEFA about squad cost controls as part of our punishment. Wesley Fofana was never going to find a buyer and Benoit Badiashile is injured, so departures there were complicated. Added to this there was the risk of Josh Acheampong wanting to leave if we signed a new CB.

The Sporting Directors, rightly in my view, didn’t want to make a panic buy, and also wanted to give Josh a clear pathway, and he’s definitely good enough to deserve that. In reality, most managers never get everything they want, but despite the lack of backing at CB, head coach Enzo Maresca was significantly backed in other areas with some players he asked for.

Maresca demanded we strengthen the attack as a priority, and that’s been done, with players he wanted, like Liam Delap, Jamie Gittens and Alejandro Garnacho. We’ve also added serious depth to the midfield so Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez can be rested, and signed a top LB option to allow rotation for Marc Cucurella and even cover at LCB.

Even Buonanotte looks like a talented player, and has PL experience. As a squad option, even he could be a shrewd acquisition. Is he the ideal signing in that position? No. But given the restrictions we were under, and given we need more of a squad option, having him as depth in the squad should work fine.

It’s a far cry even from last summer, when we signed Renato Veiga and Joao Felix, who were gone in 6 months and barely started in the PL, and Omari Kellyman who is now on loan in League One. That’s £77m wasted last summer. In contrast, I don’t believe we’ve wasted any money this summer.

The end of the window WAS disappointing, in that we didn’t get another major attacker in the door. But there’s a good chance this depended on selling Nicolas Jackson and although we got a loan with obligation, that clearly wasn’t enough. Given the punishment for failing the UEFA restrictions could be removal from the Champions League, I understand the clubs hesitancy on this.

People will also criticise us for failing to get rid of Raheem Sterling and Axel Disasi. To counter this, I’ll share that Rob Pratley, a friend of the site, appeared on my Deadline Day space, and there he shared that we had 3 bids for Raheem Sterling accepted by the club, which he rejected, and loan opportunities for Axel Disasi which he too rejected. That’s on them, no one else, and we did our job in finding them moves. Hopefully we can move them on in January.

I think the easy scapegoating of the SDs or owners for everything negative which happens isn’t helpful or constructive, or even accurate. I take the perspective that I’ll criticise them when they mess up, and won’t hold back. But I’ll also take context into account and will give them credit where its due.

Overall I think we’re in a strong position as a squad and a club, and have good forward momentum. Next summer Mike Penders, Aaron Anselmino, Kendry Paez and Geovany Quenda will all join the squad, potentially Mamadou Sarr as well. That’s good forward planning in my view. I’m guessing we’ll sign a top CB too, and fill any gaps in the squad from players leaving. The squad we have now will have had another year together and gathered experience.

The Sporting Directors model of squad building is different from most fans. We want immediate answers, and football fans generally (including myself at times) tend not to be so patient. The SDs are building a young squad over several years rather than buying big established stars on bigger wages and fees.

Some signed for the squad will be developed on loan before joining up with Chelsea for the long term. By next year we could have Andrey Santos (£12m), Aaron Anselmino (above), who got a standing ovation from Dortmund fans on his debut (£17m), Mike Penders (£17m), Kendry Paez (£18m), Estevao (£29m), Dario Essugo (£18.5m) and Mamadou Sarr (£12.5m), all potentially in our squad. These cost £124m in total. Even if one or two don’t make it into the squad, they’ll be sold at a profit to invest in other players.

We’re slowly building a squad which will compete for the top honours next season, and for many seasons beyond. It's a sustainable way of building a competitive squad. I expect us this season to end with more points than last, a better team and closer to competing for the PL and CL titles.

We’re by no means perfect and some awful decisions have been made by those above. No one is blowing wind up the owners or SD’s backsides here. They’ve made some big mistakes and they’ve not treated players well at times. Even in this window, I think they could have got at least one deal done which they didn’t. I mean, lets be real, one reason we have these restrictions is overspending by the owners in their first year in charge, which is more on the owners than the SD’s who only started half way through that season.

So they aren’t perfect, but I do believe we’re now headed in the right direction. We have a talented, competitive squad, with good team spirit and who are fast developing a winning mentality.

We have a top coach who has already won two trophies and is now in his second season, and finally there is some stability at the club. We’re not there yet, but the momentum is positive and we’re going to keep improving.

Despite some hiccups along the way, and maybe some more to come, in my view the medium to long term future is undoubtedly positive for Chelsea Football Club.

The Score