Chelsea make their own Luk thanks to a pragmatic approach
AFTER starting the summer with the biggest trophy of all, it looks like Chelsea are going to end it as the biggest winners in the transfer market as well.
Whether your team ply their trade in League Two or the Premier League, strikers who score goals are the most sought-after commodity and, for all the superstar managers, world-class playmakers, tricky wingers and dominant defenders employed at Anfield, Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and the Etihad, it is the hunt for prolific marksmen which dominated the summer transfer window.
While Manchester City this week conceded defeat in their attempts to prise Harry Kane away from Tottenham, Chelsea – the team who beat them in the Champions League final in May – successfully concluded their own attempts to sharpen their attack several weeks ago.
Having accepted luring top target Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund was not going to happen this year, Chelsea – ever the pragmatists – moved quickly to secure the next best thing – the older, slightly less glamorous but equally potent Romelu Lukaku for as near to £100m as to need no argument.
Whereas Chelsea were ready to pivot, for much of the summer City’s strategy seemed be Kane or nothing. But with the England captain committing his future to Spurs, for now, the champions must consider whether to look elsewhere.
Mouthwatering links with Cristiano Ronaldo will not go away but, whereas Haaland to Lukaku seemed a logical next step, Kane to Ronaldo would be nothing short of an all-in gamble.
If the chase for Kane was the summer’s big saga, Ronaldo would be an entire circus, and the big top pitched in Manchester wouldn’t shut when the transfer window closes.
Always the big show since leaving Manchester United in 2009, it is difficult to see football’s ultimate alpha male accepting a subservient role under Pep Guardiola, a manager
who routinely sends Raheem Sterling, Sergio Aguero and Riyad Mahrez to the City bench and sometimes leaves them there.
If City are to sign someone before next Tuesday’s deadline their best bet may be found in the wreckage left by the shifting tectonic plates in La Liga.
Barcelona’s chronic financial state would almost certainly see them accept a bid for Martin Braithwaite, hardly box-office but exactly the kind of modest, selfless forward you could see thriving in Guardiola’s collective.
Or, elsewhere in Spain, if Real Madrid land Kylian Mbappe – concluding their own summer-long odyssey – bit-part strikers Luka Jovic and Mariano Diaz are certain to be available to help balance the books.
So, no Kane, but still options for City. But whatever transpires, it is unlikely to steal bragging rights away from pragmatic, proactive Chelsea, the summer’s big winners. Again.