‘Really Excited’—Chelsea Co-Owner Responds to Arsenal Transfer Hijack Speculation | OneFootball

Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly has scoffed at suggestions Andrey Santos could leave the club this summer amid transfer speculation involving Premier League rivals Arsenal.

The Brazilian midfielder has spent the season on-loan at Ligue 1 club Strasbourg—who operate under the Boehly-controlled BlueCo umbrella—and has thrived under the management of Liam Rosenior.

European heavyweights Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich, in addition to Arsenal, have been linked with moves for Santos by French media, but Chelsea have seemingly always planned to reintegrate the 21-year-old back into their first-team setup.

Santos arrived at Stamford Bridge with a growing reputation after breaking through at Palmeiras, who have also kickstarted the careers of Endrick, Danilo and Estevao Willian— the latter will join Santos at Chelsea this summer after turning 18. He then spent time on loan at Nottingham Forest but failed to make much of an impact at the City Ground, largely because of injury.

Judging by the words of Boehly, who Bloomberg estimated to be worth $8.86 billion in May, Santos has a big role to play for Chelsea in the years to come, starting at this summer’s revamped Club World Cup.

“We’re going to the Club World Cup so, right now, we’re laser-focused on the Club World Cup,” Boehly remarked at the Qatar Economic Forum. ”We have some players that are joining us for the Club World Cup that weren’t on the team. Andrey Santos is coming from Strasbourg. We’re really excited about him and what we think he can add to the squad.

Andrey Santos has shone at Strasbourg this season. / IMAGO / PsnewZ

“The challenge that we really have is how many matches these guys are playing. The calendar is really tight, they put in so much effort and energy and the injuries are continuing to go up and up and up. We’re going to have to revisit what the calendar looks like and how much football they can actually play.

“Obviously, they’re built to play football, they love playing football, so we’re trying to find the balance of what’s the right amount of football.”

Speaking on Chelsea's overall transfer strategy moving forward, Boehly continued: “Listen, I think we’ve done most of our investing.

“We’re not looking at it as a spend, we’re looking at it as an investment and we’re trying to build the best portfolio of players that can perform at the highest level, for the longest periods of time.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of investment in this window… just what I’m hearing, what we’re feeling, so there’s going to be lot of well-heeled clubs looking to add to their teams and that’s only good for the Premier League.”