Chelsea's Serbian midfielder Nemanja Matic challenges Paris Saint-Germain's Italian midfielder Marco Verratti. (Photo by MIGUEL MEDINA/AFP via Getty Images)
Chelsea, Barcelona and Bayern Munich were all apparently interested in signing Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) superstar Marco Verratti this summer.
According to French outlet L’Equipe (h/t Fichajes.com), the trio asked to loan the Italy international but failed to sign him because PSG only wanted a permanent transfer. Apparently, that was due to FFP reasons.
Now, Fabrizio Romano has claimed that the player is close to joining Saudi Arabian side Al-Arabi after agreeing on personal terms. The French giants have already agreed to sell him for €45 million.
That is a surprising move from Chelsea to want to loan Verratti. It gives off the image that the club were really desperate this summer to infuse experience into a very young midfield.
It isn’t clear if the loan request was made before or after our double capture of Romeo Lavia and Moises Caicedo, but either way, it wasn’t the right approach for sure. It would have been odd to sell Mateo Kovacic, N’Golo Kante and Jorginho in 2023 and then loan Verratti.
If we were that bad in need of experience, why sell all of them in the first place instead of keeping them here for another year? Verratti is still ‘just’ 30 years old. His longevity is immense because he is still at the top of his game.
Al-Arabi’s offer is huge for a defensive midfielder in his 30s so perhaps it was best that Chelsea didn’t throw that money on him. But it wouldn’t have been a bad transfer if we did sign him permanently.
He is a smooth operator in midfield and has bags of experience for Italy and PSG – two world-class teams. Right now, the midfielders we have are largely unproven in the very long run.
As for Verratti, it seems he has chosen to join a league which is budding but has next to no cultural clout in the global footballing sphere. He could be a part of a revolution, or, it could be one big payday before he approaches retirement.
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