This scattergun summer for Chelsea shows real need for transfer guru

LOOKING at Chelsea’s transfer business this s u m m e r, the recruitment of Michael Edwards cannot come soon enough.

What began as a controlled, targeted process is quickly turning into a scattergun supermarket sweep. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang? Marc Cucurella at £ 50million? Wesley Fofana at £80m plus?

Nobody can argue that Todd Boehly is not investing. Yet where is he getting these names and valuations? And what does Edwards make of it all, if he remains the target?

Not much point becoming the sporting director of a club that has already chosen its direction. Not much point heading up recruitment if the boss has blown the kitty, either.

Chelsea started the window well. Raheem Sterling and Kalidou Koulibaly were excellent additions. Cucurella is expensive, particularly with Ben Chilwell now fit, but Thomas Tuchel may have plans to play him in a more central role, as he did Cesar Azpilicueta, who has now renewed a two-year contract.

So far so good. And there was no harm in Boehly’s hands- on approach. After all, it was not as if the previous Chelsea regime had been covered in glory by record-breaking deals for Romelu Lukaku and Kepa Arrizabalaga. Chelsea were most certainly not infallible in the market.

Yet Boehly was supposed to be a place-holder until Edwards, or similar, could come on board. Now Chelsea will start the season with Boehly still calling the shots and a process that is increasingly reminiscent of the many recent missteps made by Manchester United.

Arguably Edwards’ greatest achievement at Liverpool was the character of his recruits. It cannot be coincidence that Jurgen Klopp manages a squad of diligent, selfless players, who have forged one of the strongest bonds in club football.

Much the same is true at Manchester City in the Pep Guardiola era. They are a good bunch. It is one of the reasons Guardiola was against adding the game’s great individual, Cristiano Ronaldo, to his squad.

Yet what do we know of Aubameyang, Chelsea’s latest forward target? Only that Mikel Arteta

could not wait to get him out of Arsenal, and that not even the captain’s armband motivated him to arrive on time for club meetings. He was twice left out of matches for disciplinary reasons — once against Tottenham in a home derby — and by the end the manager was utterly exasperated.

Now does that sound like the sort of player Edwards would be recommending to Klopp? True, Tuchel worked with Aubameyang at Borussia Dortmund and knows him well. Then again, so did Klopp. And you will notice scant historic interest from Liverpool.

Another recent addition at Chelsea is Carney Chukwuemeka, a fabulous prospect from Aston Villa. He is 18, has started two Premier League games and cost £20m.

‘One of Europe’s most exciting young players,’ Boehly called him, and he is right. Chukwuemeka was a star as England’s Under 19s won the European Championship this summer and clubs across the continent have been on his trail.

Against this, he has been problematic at Villa, refusing to sign a new contract in a standoff that escalated to the extent Steven Gerrard refused to take him on this summer’s preseason tour. He is a teenager with ambitions. Yet he is also a central midfielder who does not care to work with one of the finest in his position that this country has ever produced.

Is he an Edwards type? Will he fit in at a club where firstteam opportunities might be as scarce for an 18-year-old as they were at Villa Park?

As the season nears, so Chelsea’s activity seems to have ramped up. Have early disappointments around Jules Kounde and Raphinha — both lost to Barcelona — played a part?

One club who have been dealing with Boehly claim they have found negotiations hard. They describe Chelsea’s new owner as wary, always fearing the other party is taking advantage. Maybe those losses to Barcelona stung him, maybe he has heard one too many stories of football’s wild west transfer market.

But that is why they need Edwards, that is why they need a man who knows this course and distance. He should have been Chelsea’s priority this summer. Manchester United’s, too, by the looks of it.

WHAT was your favourite part of Rebekah Vardy’s PR offensive this week? Maybe it is yet to come, with the realisation that when you are a proven liar heading back to court to debate costs measured in the millions for a case you actually brought, it is probably best not to publicly paint the presiding judge as thick, incompetent and biased. Damning the legal system might not help, either. Still, it might give Vardy the opportunity to try another Columbidae-related analogy. ‘Arguing with Justice Karen Steyn is like arguing with a pigeon. You can tell her she is useless and doesn’t understand law but she is still going to hit you with a three million quid bill for bringing an utterly specious libel action based on evidence so ludicrous it could have been ripped apart by a trainee paralegal with ADHD and the notes from the wrong case.’ Anyway. Here’s my favourite bit. It is the first line of an interview she did with the very newspaper she served