.Jadon Sancho|5 squad goals for Chelsea this summer

Yes, the real deal. Jason Sancho is the £120-150million royal booty radiating right through the creeks in the walls of Borussia Dortmund’s vault. He’s the man now and he’s the future. Man City for all their pretext at cold indifference must be ruing this. They let him go, just a couple years back for a paltry £8million, without a buyback clause (just like Chelsea did Salah and DeBruyne - moral of the story, if you rate the player even a little bit, even if he don’t fit your game right now, always add a buyback clause) and they did no one a favor when they forgot to fix in an anti-Man Utd clause in his purchase agreement. We all bear to watch Kylian Mbappe strut his stuff in Ligue one because it isnt competitive - we see Raheem killing us back to back with Man city and wonder just how much more of this we can actually take. Now our competitors are bidding to get a hand on this magnificent gem? Never! No matter the cost.

Except that - the cost. At various times this season Chelsea had been quoted to have a £150-200million transfer kitty to reinforce their squad. Even where we had £300million to splurge, if Jadon Sancho alone will cost us a base £120million, we might be wary of such a deal. Added to the rumor making rounds that Man Utd are offering the lad a £300000 per week deal and we’ve got this neon sign screaming at us the need to thread cautiously. None of our squad earns above £300000 and some talents we currently possess are not far removed from Jadon’s level of adeptness on the field. In some quarters, it’s actually believed we slightly overpaid for Pulisic. I don’t believe we did, but still. And we’ve had a couple seasons looking at other clubs transfer fiascoes to learn from. Coutinho’s about to return to the EPL for around half of what he went out for just 3 years ago. Dortmund also sold wonder kid Ousmanne Dembele to Barça for around that range - We wouldn’t buy Dembele for near that right now. Sancho is not immune to such a fall. Even if Sancho does come in with his double figures for goals and assists, we still have a lot more to improve on and his sign on outlay takes a huge hit on our ability to do that. We devalue our current squad, who will still demand contemporary pay regardless and there’s no guarantee that our competitors don’t find a cheaper, smarter answer to us anyway, maybe even from us. Think how Hazard’s dominance on the left lost us Salah. Replace Hazard with Sancho and Salah with Hudson-Odoi. Frightening huh?

The best circumstances for Chelsea would have been that Sancho goes to a club that he really doesn’t improve much in OR improves much, like Real, Bayern, Liverpool, PSG or his parent club Man City. He surely won’t be benching anyone of their front line anytime soon, however hot his form. The problems is not us missing Jadon. It’s who we prevent from getting him. If Man Utd are to get Sancho, we must make sure they spend exorbitantly, way beyond the £150million + £20.8million/yr they’re budgeting for him. Because the difference between Sancho and the kids we have at our disposal right now is that Sancho is DOING it. And probably hasn’t hit ceiling yet. CHO has the potential to put up astronomical stats in the near future, Sancho is putting them up NOW. Chelsea needs to go all out, gun blazing in their bid to snap up Sancho because the alternative is grim. He cannot go to improve a direct competitor; we just cannot let him do that or we’re ruing it for the next 8 years minimum. If we miss out on Sancho, what’s a Sancho alternative? Coutinho? He doesn’t have the facilities to approach the kind of goal contributions Sancho is showing he can reach consistently and he doesn’t have 8 years in his tank. Sancho’s rounded out at 40 goal contributions (goals + assists) the past two seasons. Even if Sancho’s form to half his current numbers that’s 20 goal contributions a season, more than decent. In his best season, Coutinho’s were around 20. Wilfred Zaha’s were lesser. They’re both 28. And at £70-80million less cost effective. Adama Traore and Leroy Sane at 24 seem like better prospects but are only slightly better than Coutinho. We’ve been linked to a certain duo, Kai Havertz and Latauro Martinez; both are rounding out at 30 goal contributions at around Jadon’s age. Both aren’t even homegrown, and are still going for £100million asking price on the market today. If we can get either, especially Kai for £20million less, we should absolutely grab the opportunity. But numbers don’t lie. The only kid forwards currently on par with Sancho and Timo are Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. We will not get those this year. We need to bleed on Sancho, just as on Timo. So what hopes do we have of getting the lad?

Suppose by some miracle, Coronavirus severely impacts Man Utds coffers without touching ours (some miracle indeed). Or more concretely, we can convince Sancho himself to seek out us and only us (and you’ll wonder how promise of Jadon-centric Chelsea and matching the £300000/week pay incentive can enable us accomplish that). We could even send Michy and/or CHO the other way to soften the deal, if need be (don’t forget the buyback for CHO). And finally clear out all the dead weight we’ve talked about to augment funds for the deal. We could give Sancho the 10 shirt. If we can get Man Utd out of the running, we can actually get Sancho lower than this astronomical fee being quoted. But we must buy Sancho. Or burn Man Utd’s finance department in the attempt. How so?

It all depends on the lad himself. If we can agree terms with him, then we must ensure we provoke a bidding war with United. And LOSE. Contrary to reports, we’re financially stronger. They have huge Alexis Sanchez and Paul Pogba sized holes in their wage budgets and are in deficit of more than £169million in transfer fees according to the Daily mail. We though, owe no transfer fees, despite recording a loss of £97million before Hazard’s sale last season. We also need to be smart enough to know when to be outbidden. If we push them to a point where they shell out £160million OR MORE for Jadon’s signature for instance, we rest easy, knowing they will not be strenghtening for quite a while. We, on the other hand, will go at it again, pretty soon. Hopefully with Jadon Sancho swelling our ranks.